An intergrated interactive video and internet system

Claim 1

A system for presenting integrated television programming and corresponding related Internet information segments obtained from Web sites (62) on the Internet (20), the system comprising: first means (16, 114) for receiving programming, wherein the programming contains a video signal and an audio signal; second means (106) for receiving one or more uniform resource locators, wherein the uniform resource locators specify one or more Internet addresses (102) of the information segments which relate specifically to the content of the video and audio signals of the received programming; a controller (16), connected to the second receiving means (106), comprising: means (12) for decoding the uniform resource locators to determine the specified Internet addresses (102); means (98), connected to the decoding means (12), for retrieving the one or more Internet information segments residing at the determined Internet addresses (102); and display means (18, 114), connected to the controller (16) and the first and second receiving means (16, 106, 114), for presenting the video and audio signals concurrently with the Internet information segments (102).

Claim 4

A system for presenting integrated television programming and corresponding related Internet information segments obtained from Web sites on the Internet (20), the system comprising: television broadcaster data entry and broadcast means comprising: means (70, 74) for accessing a service Web site (62) on the Internet (20), wherein a member broadcaster of television programming accesses the service Web site (62); means (70, 74) for entering information into the service Web site (62), wherein the entered information is comprised of uniform resource locators and a time at which a particular program will be broadcast (86) by the member broadcaster (66), wherein the uniform resource locators specify one or more Internet addresses (102) of the relevant Internet information pages which relate specifically to the content of the particular program being broadcast by the member broadcaster (66); means (70), connected to the entering means (70, 74), for storing the entered information; first means (86, 110) for sending the particular program being broadcast by the member broadcaster (66) to a user (118), wherein the particular program contains a video signal and an audio signal; second means (74), connected to the storing means (70), for sending, at the time at which the particular program will be broadcast, the stored uniform resource locators over a direct Internet connection (94) to the user (118); a user terminal (16) comprising: first means (16, 114) for receiving, from the first sending means (86, 110), the particular program, including the video and audio signals, being broadcast by the member broadcaster (66) to a user (118); second means (106) for receiving, from the second means (74) for sending, the stored uniform resource locators which correspond to the video and audio signals received by the first receiving means (16, 114); a controller (16), connected to the second receiving means (106), comprising: means (12) for decoding the uniform resource locators to determine the specified Internet addresses; means (98), connected to the decoding means (12), for retrieving the one or more Internet information segments residing at the determined Internet addresses (102); and display means (18, 114), connected to the controller (16) and the first and second receiving means (16, 106, 114), for presenting the video and audio signals concurrently with the Internet information segments.

Claim 5

A system for presenting integrated television programming and corresponding related Internet information segments obtained from Web sites on the Internet (20), the system comprising: means (16) for receiving programming, wherein the programming contains a video signal (36), an audio signal and one or more embedded uniform resource locators, wherein the embedded uniform resource locators specify one or more Internet addresses of the information segments which relate specifically to the content of the video and audio signals of the programming; a controller (16), connected to the receiving means (16), comprising: means (12) for decoding the uniform resource locators to determine the specified Internet addresses; means (16), connected to the decoding means (12), for retrieving the one or more Internet information segments residing at the determined Internet addresses; and display means (18), connected to the controller (16) and receiving means (16), for presenting the video and audio signals concurrently with the Internet information segments.

Claim 6

A method for integrating television program content with relevant information pages from the Internet (20), the method comprising the steps of: receiving programming, the programming containing a video signal and an audio signal; receiving one or more uniform resource locators, wherein the uniform resource locators specify one or more Internet addresses (102) of the relevant Internet information pages which relate specifically to the content of the video and audio signals of the programming; interpreting the uniform resource locators to determine the specified Internet addresses; retrieving the one or more Internet information segments residing at the determined Internet addresses (102); and presenting the video and audio signals concurrently with the Internet information segments.

Claim 9

A method for integrating television program content with relevant information pages from the Internet, the method comprising the steps of: receiving programming, the programming containing a video signal (36), an audio signal and one or more uniform resource locators, wherein the uniform resource locators are embedded in the video signal (36) and specify one or more Internet addresses of the relevant Internet information pages which relate specifically to the content of the video and audio signals of the programming; extracting the uniform resource locators from the video signal; interpreting the uniform resource locators to determine the specified Internet addresses; retrieving the one or more Internet information segments residing at the determined Internet addresses; and presenting the video and audio signals concurrently with the Internet information segments.