US 5,253,066 · Granted 1993-10-12

The 1993 Patent That Invented Your DVR's Program Guide

Imagine a TV remote that shows you what's on right now, lets you pick which shows to record with a tap, and even blocks content you don't want to watch based on ratings. This patent describes exactly that system — the digital ancestor of your cable box or streaming app's guide.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a system that receives a TV program guide signal, displays it on screen, lets viewers select programs to record or watch, and automatically enables or blocks recording based on program type and parental restrictions. What's protected here is the combination of receiving guide data, displaying it visually, allowing user selection, and then using those selections plus content ratings to control what gets recorded or viewed.

Why it matters

This patent, filed in 1990 and granted in 1993, describes the core mechanics of the interactive program guide and parental controls that became standard in DVRs, cable boxes, and streaming devices. It established the foundational concept of digital program selection and content filtering — features that transformed how families manage and restrict what they watch.

Real-world use

Every time you scroll through your cable box's on-screen guide, select a show to record, or set parental controls to block R-rated content, you're using technology this patent describes.

Original USPTO abstract

A signal representative of a television program guide, a signal indicating which program is currently being viewed or recorded and a signal indicating the class of program being viewed or recorded are received at the point of reception of a television program signal. The program guide signal is used to cause a program guide to be displayed on a television screen. A viewer selects one or more programs to be recorded or viewed from the displayed guide and selects a set of classifications that are to be permitted. While the received program indicating signal indicates that the current program is one of the selected programs and the received classifying signal indicates that the current program is of a permitted classification, recording or viewing of the program is enabled. A further extension of the invention causes the program identifying signal to be recorded on a video recording along with the program so that on replay the recording can visually be identified.

Patent details

Publication number: US 5,253,066
Filing date: 1990-05-30
Grant date: 1993-10-12
Assignee: Vogel Peter S
Inventor(s): VOGEL; PETER S.
CPC class: H04N21/812

View original record on Google Patents →

Want to file your own patent?

If you're designing a media app or smart TV feature, search our database to see how decades of patents have stacked up around program guides and viewing controls.

Free patentability scan