Appeal No. 2002-1380
Application No. 08/786,270 Page 11
library 88 at the central site 38 in an effort to identify the
programs broadcast by a given broadcast source at a given time
(page 29). If an ancillary code is present, there is no need to
additionally extract signatures. However, if no ancillary code
is present, signatures must be extracted so that the program or
channel can be identified (pages 32 and 33). As shown in figure
3, a clock 108 at the household time stamps either the ancillary
code read or the signature extracted (page 33). This use of
clock 108 ignores time-shifted viewing of programs recorded in
the home and time independent viewing of rental tapes (pages 33
and 34). Figure 4 shows a tuning record, including a flag field
122, a type field 124, a code field 126, a program signature
field, 128, and a time data field 130 (pages 35 and 36). Clock
110 at local monitoring site 34 relates the data collected from
the local monitoring site 34 with the data collected at the
household 12. For example, the times of signature extraction are
compared so that the time interval between the signatures can be
calculated. The time interval between signatures is useful as a
search parameter in identifying non-real time viewing (pages 36
and 37).
As shown in figure 5, if an ancillary code is detected, the
program ID is determined at block 148, based upon the detected
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