US 5,227,874 · Granted 1993-07-13

The 1993 Patent That Turned TV Viewers Into Market Research Labs

Imagine watching TV and seeing a question pop up on your screen asking what you think about a commercial—then instantly getting a coupon mailed to your house based on your answer. This patent describes the system that made that interactive TV feedback loop possible, measuring in real time how well ads actually convince people to buy things.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a system for measuring how effective advertisements and promotions are by letting TV viewers respond to on-screen prompts using a keyboard at home. What's protected here is the combination of an instructional signal embedded in or synchronized with a broadcast program, remote receiving stations where households can enter responses, stored acceptable responses in memory, comparison circuits that score those responses, and the ability to automatically dispense rewards (like coupons) based on performance. The patent specifically locks down the method of quantifying both the immediate impact and the fading effect of stimuli on purchasing decisions.

Why it matters

This patent captures an early vision of interactive television and real-time consumer feedback loops—technology that seemed futuristic in 1993 but prefigured modern digital advertising analytics and targeted promotions. By patenting the mechanics of embedding instructional signals into broadcasts and collecting household-level response data, the inventor protected a foundational approach to measuring ad effectiveness that would become central to how companies understand and influence consumer behavior. The ability to automatically dispense incentives based on response data was innovative for its time, when most market research happened through mail surveys or phone calls.

Real-world use

When you see an interactive ad on a streaming service or respond to a poll embedded in a video and receive a personalized offer the next day, you're experiencing an evolution of the feedback system this patent describes.

Original USPTO abstract

Methods for the evaluation of stimuli such as broadcast commercials intended to promote purchases by shoppers are disclosed. The methods quantify the effectiveness of controlled variables of stimuli and of inducements associated therewith. The immediate impact and degree of erosion of the impact of stimuli on families and on individual household members are measured. Inducements can take the form of printouts, such as monetary coupons, dispensed in homes of broadcast audience members who have responded to a task. The system and method for evaluating responses to broadcast or telephone programs, such as television programs, includes an instructional signal, such as a signal modulated onto a signal transmitted concurrently with the television program, or time-multiplexed therewith. At each of a plurality of remote receiving stations, one or more members of an audience has the opportunity to respond to a situation presented in the program by entering a response or a selection on a keyboard. The system includes at each remote receiving station a memory responsive to the instructional signal for storing acceptable responses, and a comparison circuit for comparing responses entered at the keyboard with those stored in the memory. Also provided is electronic circuitry for scoring the responses in accordance with commands from the instructional signal, and a recording device for providing a permanent record. A prize-winning respondent can select a product from a listing and apply the value of a prize to the purchase price of the selected product.

Patent details

Publication number: US 5,227,874
Filing date: 1991-10-15
Grant date: 1993-07-13
Assignee: Kohorn H Von
Inventor(s): VON KOHORN; HENRY
CPC class: H04H20/28

View original record on Google Patents →

Want to file your own patent?

If you're designing an app or gadget that collects consumer feedback or triggers automated rewards, our free patentability scanner can help you spot existing patents in this crowded space before you build.

Free patentability scan