Patents by Inventor Samuel T. Barone

Samuel T. Barone has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 7861259
    Abstract: An interactive television system tailoring delivery of interactive content. The system includes a request processing engine accepting user interactions with an interactive television (ITV) application. A user profiling engine associates the user interactions with an individual profile or profile group. The profile group defines events that may be triggered upon receipt of certain user interactions. A trigger/event engine monitors, in real-time, whether the user interactions correspond to any of the defined events. If an event is to be triggered, an action engine transmits an ITV command associated with the event to an encoder. The encoder performs a real-time of encoding of the ITV command for providing viewers with a dynamic ITV experience. The ITV experience provided to the viewers may also be customized based on the profile information obtained for each individual viewer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2002
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2010
    Assignee: Goldpocket Interactive
    Inventor: Samuel T. Barone, Jr.
  • Patent number: 7607149
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for delivering interactive television (ITV) data by using the same TV scan line that also carries closed caption data. The ITV data is inserted into the scan line with CC data by detecting a gap associated with a first CC data unit. If the gap is large enough to contain all of the group of ITV data units then electronically insert the entire group of ITV data units into the gap. If the gap is not large enough to contain the entire group of ITV data units, insert a subset of the entire group of the ITV data units into the gap and continue to the gaps associated with successive CC data units, inserting subsets of the ITV data into subsequent gaps until the entire ITV message has been inserted into the gaps between CC data units.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2009
    Assignee: GoldPocket Interactive, Inc.
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, Jr., Drake Smith, David Davis, Thomas Stone
  • Patent number: 7228349
    Abstract: A system and method for efficiently and quickly handling content and transaction requests from various users at respective end terminals. According to embodiments of the invention, plural servers are provided at the web site to randomly receive requests from users over a communications network, such as the Internet. Each server contains a memory, such as a cache or disk storage process, that contains a copy of all data contained on every other server. When a request comes in to one of the servers, in addition to processing the request, that server broadcasts data corresponding to the request to the other servers, which are programmed to store the same request data in their respective local memories. Such broadcasts may be preferably carried out over a back-end, private network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2001
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2007
    Assignee: GoldPocket Interactive, Inc.
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, Jr., Drake Smith
  • Publication number: 20040216171
    Abstract: An ITV system that monitors and stores data related to digital video broadcasts. Such data may include digital sound files, image files, subscription data, software programs, television program information, ITV advertising content, and the like. The monitoring system stores information about a pre-determined set of data that is being monitored in a digital video stream, in one or more log files. The log files may then be used to generate a plurality of user defined reports. The reports may be used by broadcasters, cable operators, and content providers, and the like to establish general auditing and billing services.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 20, 2004
    Publication date: October 28, 2004
    Applicant: Goldpocket Interactive
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, John Kelly King
  • Publication number: 20040216161
    Abstract: An ITV system that monitors and stores data related to digital video broadcasts. Such data may include digital sound files, image files, subscription data, software programs, television program information, ITV advertising content, and the like. The monitoring system stores information about a pre-determined set of data that is being monitored in a digital video stream, in one or more log files. The log files may then be used to generate a plurality of user defined reports. The reports may be used by broadcasters, cable operators, and content providers, and the like to establish general auditing and billing services.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 20, 2004
    Publication date: October 28, 2004
    Applicant: Goldpocket Interactive
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, John Kelly King
  • Publication number: 20030066081
    Abstract: A command protocol enables an applications programming interface (API) between a first interactive television (ITV) equipment and a second ITV equipment for seamless communication between the two. An API command generator receives data from the first ITV equipment in a first format. The data may be, for example, a list of ITV events to be encoded into a television program. The command generator converts data into a second format according to the API and transmits the data in the second format to the second ITV equipment. The second ITV equipment may be, for example, an ITV data encoder encoding the list of ITV events transmitted by the first ITV equipment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 29, 2002
    Publication date: April 3, 2003
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, Drake Smith
  • Publication number: 20030053655
    Abstract: An ITV system that monitors and stores data related to digital video broadcasts. Such data may include digital sound files, image files, subscription data, software programs, television program information, ITV advertising content, and the like. The monitoring system stores information about a pre-determined set of data that is being monitored in a digital video stream, in one or more log files. The log files may then be used to generate a plurality of user defined reports. The reports may be used by broadcasters, cable operators, and content providers, and the like to establish general auditing and billing services.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2002
    Publication date: March 20, 2003
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, John Kelly King
  • Publication number: 20030051238
    Abstract: An interactive television (ITV) system encoding content rating, content advisories, demographics information, and other types of ITV content profiling information for an ITV content into a video program. An ITV receiver receives the encoded video program and compares the ITV content profiling information with a viewer profile stored in memory. If the profiling information for the ITV content does not match the viewer's profile, the ITV content is not provided to the viewer. For example, the ITV content is not provided if the content rating/advisory information embedded for the ITV content is greater than a rating limit set by the viewer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2002
    Publication date: March 13, 2003
    Inventor: Samuel T. Barone
  • Publication number: 20030051253
    Abstract: An interactive television system tailoring delivery of interactive content. The system includes a request processing engine accepting user interactions with an interactive television (ITV) application. A user profiling engine associates the user interactions with an individual profile or profile group. The profile group defines events that may be triggered upon receipt of certain user interactions. A trigger/event engine monitors, in real-time, whether the user interactions correspond to any of the defined events. If an event is to be triggered, an action engine transmits an ITV command associated with the event to an encoder. The encoder performs a real-time of encoding of the ITV command for providing viewers with a dynamic ITV experience. The ITV experience provided to the viewers may also be customized based on the profile information obtained for each individual viewer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2002
    Publication date: March 13, 2003
    Inventor: Samuel T. Barone
  • Publication number: 20020129381
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for delivering interactive television (ITV) data by using the same TV scan line that also carries closed caption data. The ITV data is inserted into the scan line with CC data by detecting a gap associated with a first CC data unit. If the gap is large enough to contain all of the group of ITV data units then electronically insert the entire group of ITV data units into the gap. If the gap is not large enough to contain the entire group of ITV data units, insert a subset of the entire group of the ITV data units into the gap and continue to the gaps associated with successive CC data units, inserting subsets of the ITV data into subsequent gaps until the entire ITV message has been inserted into the gaps between CC data units.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 23, 2001
    Publication date: September 12, 2002
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, Drake Smith, David Davis, Thomas Stone
  • Publication number: 20020075403
    Abstract: The present invention is directed toward a method and system for displaying closed captions encoded in a video program represented by an electronic signal in an interactive television system. In one aspect the present invention may be used to receive the electronic signal and ITV data and to determine if a conflict exists between the screen location of the closed caption and the screen location of the ITV data. If a conflict does exists the present invention relocates the closed captions to a screen location reserved for displaying closed captions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 31, 2001
    Publication date: June 20, 2002
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, Drake Smith
  • Publication number: 20020049843
    Abstract: A system and method for efficiently and quickly handling content and transaction requests from various users at respective end terminals. According to embodiments of the invention, plural servers are provided at the web site to randomly receive requests from users over a communications network, such as the Internet. Each server contains a memory, such as a cache or disk storage process, that contains a copy of all data contained on every other server. When a request comes in to one of the servers, in addition to processing the request, that server broadcasts data corresponding to the request to the other servers, which are programmed to store the same request data in their respective local memories. Such broadcasts may be preferably carried out over a back-end, private network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 31, 2001
    Publication date: April 25, 2002
    Inventors: Samuel T. Barone, Drake Smith