| US 7,454,772 B2 | ||
| Apparatus and method for blocking television commercials and providing an archive interrogation program | ||
| Craig William Fellenstein, Brookfield, Conn. (US); and Rick Allen Hamilton, II, Charlottesville, Va. (US) | ||
| Assigned to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. (US) | ||
| Filed on Jul. 25, 2002, as Appl. No. 10/205,550. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2004/0019905 A1, Jan. 29, 2004 | ||
| Int. Cl. H04N 7/10 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 725—32 [725/25; 725/39; 725/46; 725/119; 725/141] | 1 Claim |
| 1. A method for searching blocked and archived television commercials comprising:
offering a plurality of entertainment packages from an alternate viewing provider, each of the plurality of entertainment
packages adapted to fit into a time of a particular commercial;
using a television and combined with a logical unit, receiving a television program containing the particular commercial;
recognizing the particular commercial in the logical unit by an aggregation of at least one characteristic of a data sequence
of the particular commercial;
responsive to a recognition of the particular commercial by the logical unit, blocking the particular commercial from the
television;
saving the particular commercial to an archive containing a plurality of commercials previously blocked from the television
by the logical unit;
displaying on the television a message informing a viewer that an entertainment package will be presented during a segment
of time of the particular commercial, an on-screen counter showing how many seconds are left before a return to the television
program, and directions to the tuner to go to a particular channel;
responsive to a user entering a search term adapted to locate a commercial in a particular area of interest, determining in
the logical unit a list of commercials in the archive containing a text that matches the search term; and
responsive to the user selecting a matching commercial from the list, sending the matching commercial to an open channel on
the television for viewing by the user.
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