US 6,850,252 · Granted 2005-02-01

The Set-Top Box Patent That Tried to Predict What You'd Watch Next

Imagine a TV box that learns what you like and automatically adjusts its menus to match your tastes, while also understanding what's actually playing on screen so it can sort and organize your shows smarter. This patent describes an intelligent appliance that combines a user interface that adapts to you, built-in analysis of video and audio content, and the ability to process TV guide data and other show information.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claims cover a set-top box system that learns user preferences through observation and explicit feedback, then adapts its display and functions based on that learned user model. What's protected here is the combination of an adaptive interface engine, content analysis that automatically generates descriptive metadata about video and audio streams, and a system for processing program guides and metadata to control how media plays back. It also includes digital rights management features that protect copyrighted content.

Why it matters

Filed in 2000 and granted in 2005, this patent captures an early vision of personalized interactive television — the idea that set-top boxes could be smart enough to learn your viewing habits and organize content around you rather than forcing you to navigate rigid menus. At a time when cable and satellite boxes were still mostly simple tuners, this patent staked out the territory of adaptive, content-aware home entertainment systems. It represents the foundational thinking behind modern smart TV platforms and recommendation engines.

Real-world use

Every time a modern streaming device or cable box learns that you prefer action movies and reorganizes your home screen to highlight them, you're encountering the core idea this patent protects.

Original USPTO abstract

An intelligent electronic appliance preferably includes a user interface, data input and/or output port, and an intelligent processor. A preferred embodiment comprises a set top box for interacting with broadband media streams, with an adaptive user interface, content-based media processing and/or media metadata processing, and telecommunications integration. An adaptive user interface models the user, by observation, feedback, and/or explicit input, and presents a user interface and/or executes functions based on the user model. A content-based media processing system analyzes media content, for example audio and video, to understand the content, for example to generate content-descriptive metadata. A media metadata processing system operates on locally or remotely generated metadata to process the media in accordance with the metadata, which may be, for example, an electronic program guide, MPEG 7 data, and/or automatically generated format. A set top box preferably includes digital trick play effects, and incorporated digital rights management features.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,850,252
Filing date: 2000-10-05
Grant date: 2005-02-01
Assignee: Steven M. Hoffberg
Inventor(s): HOFFBERG STEVEN M.
CPC class: G06V40/103

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