US 2,006,064,716 · Filed 2005-09-07

The Patent Behind Smart Video Preview Thumbnails

Imagine scrolling through Netflix and seeing tiny moving previews of shows instead of just still images—that's what this patent covers. It's about automatically creating smart thumbnail pictures (both frozen and animated) that help you quickly decide what video to watch without having to click on everything.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The patent covers a system for creating and displaying poster thumbnails (static preview images) and animated thumbnails (short moving clips) in a user interface to help people browse and select from multiple video files or segments. What's protected here is the automated production of these preview images, including techniques for adding text overlays, image overlays, cropping, or audio to make the previews more useful—all without requiring manual human editing for each thumbnail.

Why it matters

This patent tackles a real problem: when you have hundreds or thousands of videos to choose from, scrolling through them one-by-one wastes time. By automating the creation of smart previews that actually show you what's in the video, streaming platforms can help users make faster decisions and discover content more efficiently. The patent protects the core technology that lets services generate these previews at scale without hiring people to manually create each one.

Real-world use

Every time you hover over a movie title on a streaming service and see a quick animated preview pop up, you're interacting with the kind of technology this patent describes.

Original USPTO abstract

Techniques for poster-thumbnail and/or animated thumbnail development and/or usage to effectively navigate for potential selection between a plurality of images or programs/video files or video segments. The poster and animated thumbnail images are presented in a GUI on adapted apparatus to provide an efficient system for navigating, browsing and/or selecting images or programs or video segments to be viewed by a user. The poster and animated thumbnails may be automatically produced without human-necessary editing and may also have one or more various associated data (such as text overlay, image overlay, cropping, text or image deletion or replacement, and/or associated audio).

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,006,064,716
Filing date: 2005-09-07
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Vivcom, Inc.
Inventor(s): SULL SANGHOON, KIM HYEOKMAN, SEONG YEON-SEOK, ROSTOKER MICHAEL D., KIM JUNG R.
CPC class: G11B27/34

View original record on Google Patents →

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