Appeal 2007-1775
Application 09/749,106
THE INVENTION
The disclosed invention relates to the information processing field.
More particularly, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for pricing
programming events viewed by multiple viewers (Specification 1).
Independent claims 1 and 22 are illustrative:
1. A method for determining a price of a program
transmitted by a programming provider to subscribers,
comprising:
receiving, via a network connection, a purchase order for
a program from a subscriber belonging to a subscriber group
defined by two or more subscribers, wherein each subscriber
belonging to the subscriber group maintains an independent
account with the programming provider whereby the subscriber
pays the programming provider in order to receive paid for
programming, and wherein each subscriber belonging to the
subscriber group may elect to purchase or not purchase the
program;
determining a first price for the purchase order if the
program has been purchased by a threshold number of
subscribers belonging to the subscriber group; and
determining a second price, higher than the first price, if
the program has not been purchased by the threshold number of
subscribers belonging to the subscriber group.
22. A system comprising:
a plurality of signal processing units each associated with
one of a plurality of subscribers, wherein the plurality of
subscribers make up subscriber groups each including at least
two subscribers; and
2
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