Television viewing control device
Patent 4348696 Issued on September 7, 1982. Estimated Expiration Date: 
September 8, 2000. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.
September 8, 2000. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.Patent ReferencesProgrammable television receiver controllers Check controlled metering device Patent #: 4268817 InventorApplicationNo. 06/185226 filed on 09/08/1980US Classes:725/29, Time dependent (e.g., time spent viewing program, time of day, etc.)340/5.28, Timed access blocking340/5.74, Access to electrical information725/30, Access via PIN or password968/977For operating at a number of different times (cigar or cigarette receptacles or boxes with means for limiting the frequency of smoking A24F 15/00B) [G04G 15/00C]ExaminersPrimary: Murray, RichardAttorney, Agent or FirmInternational ClassesG04G 15/00 (20060101)G07C 9/00 (20060101) AbstractA television viewing control device for recording the viewing time of one or more viewers watching a controlled television set and turning the television set off when a predetermined viewing time limit of any one of the viewers is exceeded. The viewing control device includes a random access memory circuit for semi-permanently storing an assigned individual password for each of a given number of viewers and a predetermined viewing time associated with each of the passwords, a micro processor unit having the capacity for temporarily storing the individual password of each of the viewers watching the controlled set at any particular instance of time, and including polling means operated by a read only memory unit at predetermined intervals of time to compare the passwords in the random access memory and the micro processor unit and to subtract a period of time equal to the predetermined interval from the viewing time associated with each of the passwords in the micro processor unit, and a control switch actuated by the micro processor unit for turning the controlled television set on when a first password is fed into the memory of the micro processor unit and to turn the set off when the time limit of any of the viewers watching the controlled set reaches zero. | |
