US 2,010,153,885 · Filed 2009-11-12

The TV Guide Patent That Made Search Results Visual

Back when streaming didn't exist, your TV needed a smarter way to show you what to watch. This patent describes how an interactive TV menu uses search to find programs you'd like, then displays results as a grid of colorful boxes that highlight the best matches first — essentially building a visual search engine for cable TV.

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The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a system where an interactive television application lets users search for programs by entering criteria, then generates and displays results as mosaic-style listings (visual grids). What's protected here is the specific method of ranking and displaying those results so that better matches stand out visually — essentially the mechanism for making search results organized by relevance in a grid format rather than a simple list.

Why it matters

In the early 2000s, before streaming algorithms, cable and satellite TV needed better tools to help viewers navigate thousands of channels and programs. This patent represents Rovi's effort to patent the core interaction pattern of modern TV search interfaces — the idea that results should be visual, grid-based, and sorted by how well they match what you're looking for. Today, every streaming service uses similar relevance-ranked visual layouts.

Real-world use

When you search for "action movies" on a streaming service or smart TV and see results arranged in a grid with the most relevant titles displayed more prominently, you're experiencing the interaction this patent describes.

Original USPTO abstract

An interactive television application is used to provide search results to a user. The user is provided with an opportunity to indicate a desire to search for programs. In response, the interactive television application generates search criteria and searches for programs. The search results that are displayed to the user include mosaic listings associated with programs that match the search criteria. In some embodiments, the interactive television application displays the mosaic listings in a manner that accentuates the different levels of relevance of the search results to the search criteria.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,010,153,885
Filing date: 2009-11-12
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Rovi Technologies Corporation
Inventor(s): YATES DOUG
CPC class: H04N21/4755

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