Bizarre Patents
Vehicular Impact Signaling Device
An apparatus for the deployment of a visible plume to alert other motorists that a proximate motor vehicle has been involved in a collision.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8108891 | V-chip hours Systems, methods and apparatuses are provided for allowing a user to supervise personal exposure to a program exhibited by a consumer electronics device, such as, e.g., a television system. The consumer electronics device includes “V-chip” circuitry that analyze... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8095949 | Electronic book with restricted access features A viewer for displaying electronic books and having various features for restricting access to their content. A user may assign ratings to stored electronic books, or use standard ratings, and assign access levels to potential users. The ratings and access levels de... | 01/10/2012 |
| 7475414 | Broadcasting service system and delay broadcasting method in broadcasting service using the broadcasting service system A broadcasting service system and a delay broadcasting method in broadcasting service using the broadcasting service system, any of audiovisual systems is connected to a broadcasting set when any audiovisual system request a repeater station to view program contents... | 01/06/2009 |
| 7464392 | Viewing limit controls A system for controlling the viewing of programs at a user location having one or more viewing devices. The system comprises a viewing control system, which is adapted to count a number of viewings of a program during a time period, determine whether the number of v... | 12/09/2008 |
| 7433577 | Method and apparatus for reproducing television broadcast program digest An apparatus for reproducing a television broadcast program digest which stores a broadcast signal indicative of contents of at least one television broadcast program and guide data of the at least one television broadcast program. The apparatus pre-stores a period ... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7411868 | Estimation of time within untrusted time device disconnected from trusted time device Upon connecting to a trusted device, an untrusted device: (a) acquires a trusted current time; (b) stores an elapsed time; (c) determines an estimated current time; and, (d) stores a time difference between the estimated current time and an untrusted current time. T... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7401232 | Content playback apparatus method and program and key management apparatus and system A key management apparatus which can be used to encrypt/decrypt content data in a content playback device includes a storing unit for storing a secret key, a key information decrypting unit for decrypting encrypted key information and an updating unit operable to up... | 07/15/2008 |
| 7373526 | System and method for managing power in an ASF system Techniques are disclosed for providing system manageability for computing systems operating under OS-absent conditions. In particular, techniques are disclosed for providing fully functional system management capabilities even when the primary power source for the c... | 05/13/2008 |
| 7370343 | Electronic program guide with blackout features An interactive television program guide for supporting programming blackouts is provided. In some embodiments, the interactive television program guide may unschedule the reminding and recording of blacked-out programs that have been scheduled by a user for remindin... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7370365 | Dynamic control of authorization to access internet services A method for managing authorization to access Internet services. A session object is created when a user logs onto a web site. The session object includes authorization-privilege information for N services. The user selects the service desired from the web site, at ... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7369184 | Digital broadcast receiving apparatus In a digital broadcast receiving apparatus, when a power source operation input is done by a user during execution of a starting sequence, a control part stops the execution of the starting sequence and counts the number of operations for a preset time. When the num... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7362213 | Method and apparatus for remotely controlling a plurality of devices Disclosed is a method for controlling usage times for at least one device, including the steps of: (a) identifying a device to be controlled; (b) utilizing the device by a user; (c) tracking a device usage value for the device as the user utilizes the device; and (d... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7360160 | System and method for providing substitute content in place of blocked content A method for blocking content from being presented at a client device including substitution of alternative content. The client device recognizes and evaluates the received tags and blocks content based on a user profile. Substitute content is then identified and pr... | 04/15/2008 |
| 7337458 | Content recommendation device with user feedback A content recommendation device is provided, including a selection engine selects content items from a content item pool and generates a selection list including the selected content items, wherein said selection engine selects the content items from a content item ... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7313803 | Ratings control system with temporary override capability and store-recall feature A video signal processing system for producing an output signal suitable for coupling to a display device to produce a displayed image, the video processing system having a system which blocks viewing of programs which are broadcast with ratings or spending informat... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7296285 | Multiple item user preference information data structure and method for providing multi-media information A user preference information data structure which is capable of classifying and setting user's preference information regarding multimedia contents with multiple items to thereby provide users with user's request-based whole or partial multi-media information, and ... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7295252 | Control apparatus of audio-visual display apparatus and the control method A control apparatus of an audio-visual display apparatus is provided, wherein only one remote control unit in a plurality of remote control units has a control right for controlling the audio-visual display apparatus, the control apparatus determines whether a signa... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7275163 | Asynchronous configuration One or more embodiments of the invention provide a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for providing access to digital services. Configuration information that has been transmitted asynchronously is received in a security component (that is configured to c... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7269842 | Time shifting enhanced television triggers Enhanced television broadcasts including triggers with expires attributes may be utilized in a variety of situations where the expires attribute may adversely affect the utilization of the trigger. For example, in situations where the broadcast is recorded, playback... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7249366 | Control of a system for processing a stream of information based on information content A segment announcing system is disclosed that contains one or more segment announcement receivers that receive one or more announcements over a network connection and/or other communication connection. The announcements contain content information about the content ... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7249176 | Managing user access of distributed resources on application servers A method and system to manage user access to resources and computing tasks on servers located on a network. The preferred embodiments of this system would enable a resource provider to manager user access to resources based on user specific criteria and resource spe... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7243364 | Interactive entertainment network system and method for customizing operation thereof according to viewer preferences An interactive entertainment network system has a video-on-demand (VOD) application which allows viewers to create their own customized lists of preferred video content programs, such as movies, games, TV shows, and so forth. Viewers are permitted to select criteria... | 07/10/2007 |
| 7225159 | Method for authenticating and securing integrated bookstore entries A method and system for providing an electronic shopping service integrated into a software application, and for controlling the set of web sites that are reachable from within the shopping service. Each web site is represented by data which is signed by a private k... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7210158 | Program signal blocking system An apparatus and a method for preventing a user from bypassing a viewer blocking system using program related information, such as content ratings, included in a program signal. The present invention prevents the user from exploiting the time delay associated with d... | 04/24/2007 |
| 7206892 | Method for managing recorded streams in a rewritable recording medium The present invention relates to a method for managing playlists of a rewritable recording medium in order to prevent unlimited playback or illegal edition of television broadcast programs or movies wherein copyright protection is required. The present invention ope... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7188193 | System, method and article of manufacture for a synchronizer component in a multimedia synchronization framework A system, method and article of manufacture are provided for creating a synchronizer object in order to playback an event simultaneously on a plurality of a client apparatuses. First, a request is received utilizing a network for viewing an event. Next, the request ... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7188342 | Server controlled branding of client software deployed over computer networks This invention describes a system and method for branding software deployed over computer networks. A user contacts the distributor's web site and initiates a download of the software. When the user visits the download website, the identity of the particular web sit... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7178157 | Information transmission system, information output apparatus, information input apparatus, and connection relationship identification method A control section of an IRD sends an identification start request to a digital bus via a digital input/output terminal. The control section generates an identification display message by controlling an identification display message generation section, makes a super... | 02/13/2007 |
| 7171692 | Asynchronous communication within a server arrangement A server architecture for a digital rights management system that distributes and protects rights in content. The server architecture includes a retail site which sells content items to consumers, a fulfillment site which provides to consumers the content items sold... | 01/30/2007 |
| 7158953 | Method and system for limiting the use of user-specific software features A server architecture for a digital rights management system that distributes and protects rights in content. The server architecture includes a retail site which sells content items to consumers, a fulfillment site which provides to consumers the content items sold... | 01/02/2007 |
| 7154380 | Power distribution and timing device A power distribution and timing device (PDTD) for controlling power supply to controlled device(s). This invention includes: an outlet; an alarm clock; a backup battery; a keyboard; a tamper switch; a display for showing day, time, modes of operation, programming st... | 12/26/2006 |
| 7154564 | Method for controlling channel tuning of digital TV A method for controlling channel tuning of a digital TV is disclosed, in which a desired channel can easily be tuned in accordance with a user's input in a digital TV having a channel number of a major-minor type. The method for controlling channel tuning of a digit... | 12/26/2006 |
| 7146498 | Computer and program recording medium The problem to be solved is that once copyright claimed AV data is passed to application software, the application software can freely process the AV data for recording, etc., defeating the purpose of copyright protection. The invention provides a computer which com... | 12/05/2006 |
| 7143286 | Digital certificates The present invention provides a digital certificate (2, 32), the certificate comprising a credential attribute function (6, 38) associated with a credential attribute property (5, 36), which credential attribute function is embedded in the cert... | 11/28/2006 |
| 7143064 | Controlled entertainment spending account A computer-based method for allocating funds in pre-established accounts for use by customers, by creating for each customer a customer account file containing a record of funds deposited for the customer, and limiting how the funds in each customer account file may... | 11/28/2006 |
| 7137025 | Key controlling system, key controlling apparatus, information encrypting apparatus, information decrypting apparatus and storage media for storing programs A key managing system including information transmitting apparatus which transmits a date and time when secrecy protection is ended to a key controlling apparatus. The key controlling apparatus searches a key control table for an encryption key associated with a dec... | 11/14/2006 |
| 7131133 | Access control method and information utilization apparatus The encoded contents of a piece of delivered information is accompanied by an applicable time data indicating a specific time period for authorizing a particular mode of utilization. When a request for utilizing the contents is issued in an information utilization a... | 10/31/2006 |
| 7120926 | Method and system of identifying software and firmware objects available for download over a network such as a cable television system This method and system allow a subscriber to a cable television service to receiving a listing or menu of programming available for that subscriber's set-top terminal to upgrade or enhance the features available over the cable system. A Directory of Services (DoS) m... | 10/10/2006 |
| 7114168 | Method and apparatus for determining scope of content domain A method and apparatus for determining the scope of a content domain for ensuring that a content stream is not re-routed to an unauthorized display device. The apparatus includes a content source device, which supports multiple display outputs coupled to one or more... | 09/26/2006 |
| 7107449 | Digital certificates The present invention provides a digital certificate (2, 32) comprising a plurality of credential attribute properties (6, 36), and a trust function (8, 42) embedded within the certificate as an executable file, which trust function can determin... | 09/12/2006 |
