System and data management and on-demand rental and purchase of digital data products

Abstract

A system for handling data and transactions involving data through the use of a virtual transaction zone, which virtual transaction zone removes the dependency of such transaction on the delivery medium of the product. The invention may reside and operate on a variety of electronic devices such as televisions, VCRs, DVDs, personal computers, WebTV, any other known electronic recorder/player, or as a stand alone unit. The transaction zone also provides a mechanism for combining mediums, data feeds, and manipulation of those feeds. The transaction zone also provides a mechanism for controlling the content, delivery, and timing of delivery of the end consumer's product.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A digital data delivery system for providing automatic delivery of digital data products from one or more digital data product providers, comprising: 
 a remote account transaction server for providing a digital catalog of digital data products for delivery to an end user, for providing the end user access to the digital data products, and for negotiating the acquisition of the digital data products from the digital data product providers; and    a programmable local receiver unit for interfacing the end user with the remote account transaction server to select specific digital data products for delivery, for interfacing with the digital data product providers to receive the specific digital data products, for processing and recording the digital data products according to user-specified programming options, and for playing back the specific digital data products.    
     
     
         2 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is video advertising catalog information.  
     
     
         3 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is television programming.  
     
     
         4 . The digital data deliver system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is a movie.  
     
     
         5 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is an audio recording.  
     
     
         6 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is computer software.  
     
     
         7 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is a video game.  
     
     
         8 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is purchased through interaction within a virtual transaction zone.  
     
     
         9 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is rented for a specific time through interaction within a virtual transaction zone.  
     
     
         10 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 9 , wherein the digital data rented for a specific time is automatically deleted when the rental period has expired.  
     
     
         11 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 9 , wherein access to the digital data rented for a specific time is electronically denied when the rental period has expired.  
     
     
         12 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is broadcast with at least one control data track.  
     
     
         13 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 1 , wherein the digital data is broadcast in a scrambled or encrypted format.  
     
     
         14 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 13 , wherein the digital data broadcast in scrambled or encrypted format may be accessed with an authorization key.  
     
     
         15 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 14 , wherein the authorization key may obtained by agreement to commercial terms within a transaction zone.  
     
     
         16 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 14 , wherein the digital data is broadcast to a distributor who records subsequently rents or sells the digital data to an end user.  
     
     
         17 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 16 , wherein the digital data broadcast to a distributor and thereby recorded, may be edited by the distributor according to an end user's Suitability Criteria.  
     
     
         18 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 12 , where control data tracks may be used to edit programming according to a User's Suitability Criteria  
     
     
         19 . The digital data delivery system of  claim 12 , where control data tracks may be used to select programming according to a User's Suitability Criteria  
     
     
         20 . A system for the processing, recording, playback and display of digital data, comprising: 
 a receiver apparatus for receiving the broadcast data from at least one data feed;    memory circuitry comprising a built-in, high capacity, non-movable storage device;    processing circuitry for processing the digital data and for storing the processed data in the storage device;    a user interface operatively connected to the processing circuitry for programming which processing functions are to be applied to the received data by the processing circuitry;    a microprocessor having software programming to control the operation of the processing circuitry and the playback circuitry enabling simultaneous read/write operations, the software programming interacting with the built-in, non-movable storage device and the playback apparatus for recording digital data products on a storage device, the software programming further interacting with the playback circuitry to allow the digital data products to be recorded and played in real time, the playback may be paused wherein a cue point in registered in memory, and later played back from the cue point while the digital data products delivered from a digital data product provider are being continuously recorded without interruption by the either the pause or the playback; and    playback circuitry, which reads the data from the non-movable storage device and which converts the data to electronic signals for driving a playback apparatus.    
     
     
         21 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein a playback apparatus driven by the playback circuitry plays the digital data product on demand.  
     
     
         22 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data delivered by the system is television broadcast data and the receiver apparatus comprises a television receiver.  
     
     
         23 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is received via a television antenna.  
     
     
         24 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is received via a TV cable and receiver apparatus is a cable TV receiver.  
     
     
         25 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is received by the system via a satellite receiver and receiver apparatus is a satellite receiver.  
     
     
         26 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is received via a computer network and receiver apparatus is a modem.  
     
     
         27 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is received via the internet.  
     
     
         28 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is advertising data, which may be stored on the non-movable storage device.  
     
     
         29 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the processing circuitry further comprises a discretionary content filter/editor which is programmable by the user interface to establish the criteria for whether a particular broadcast data is to be recorded or used.  
     
     
         30 . The system of  claim 29 , where the discretionary content filter/editor is programmable to establish criteria for recording based on a rating of the broadcast.  
     
     
         31 . The system of  claim 30 , wherein the discretionary content filter/editor comprises a V-chip.  
     
     
         32 . The system of  claim 30 , wherein the discretionary content filter/editor is programmable to process data according to programmable user suitability criteria.  
     
     
         33 . The system of  claim 32 , wherein the data is edited in accordance with the programmable user suitability criteria by selectively differentiating between control data tracks.  
     
     
         34 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the processing apparatus includes circuitry for decoding a control data track contained in the broadcast signal to determine whether to record the received broadcast data.  
     
     
         35 . The system of  claim 29 , wherein the discretionary content filter/editor is programmable to record broadcast data according to specific time schedules.  
     
     
         36 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast data is scrambled, wherein the scrambled broadcast data is stored in the built-in, high capacity, non-movable storage device, and wherein the processing circuitry further includes a de-scrambler to decode the stored broadcast data so that the user may obtain access to the stored data.  
     
     
         37 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the broadcast is purchased by a consumer from the broadcast data supplier.  
     
     
         38 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the data is rented by a consumer from a broadcast data supplier.  
     
     
         39 . The system of  claim 38 , wherein a simulated return of rented data may be enacted by deleting or scrambling the data from the non-movable storage device or blocking further access to the data, and notifying the broadcast data supplier of the simulated return.  
     
     
         40 . The system of  claim 37 , wherein the purchase transaction occurs on the consumer's local device.  
     
     
         41 . The system of  claim 38 , wherein the rental transaction occurs on the consumer's local device.  
     
     
         42 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to enable recording of the broadcast data in a continuous loop mode of operation.  
     
     
         43 . The system of  claim 42 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to enable or disable a set of user suitability criteria which determines the content of the broadcast data recorded on the non-movable storage device.  
     
     
         44 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable from a remote location.  
     
     
         45 . The system of  claim 44 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable through an interface comprising a telephone.  
     
     
         46 . The system of  claim 45 , wherein the telephone is a wireless telephone.  
     
     
         47 . The system of  claim 44 , the processing circuitry is programmable through an interface comprising a computer.  
     
     
         48 . The system of  claim 47 , wherein the computer is a palm top computer having a wireless modem. + 49 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable bye the user interface to require that a password be provided by the uer to obtain access to the system.  
     
     
         50 . The system of  claim 20 , furhter comprising a recording/playback device whcih utilizes a portable storage device for recoding and playback of television broadcast which has been stored n the non-movable storage device.  
     
     
         51 . They system of  claim 20 , wherein the receiver apparatus is a satellite receiver.  
     
     
         52 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the storage device comprises a plurality of individual storage units having a memory capacity.  
     
     
         53 . The system of  claim 52 , wherein the individual storage units may be programmed to a users specific suitable criteria.  
     
     
         54 . The system of  claim 52 , wherein a portion of the individual storage unit's memory capacity may be set aside for broadcast advertising data that is tailored to the users suitability criteria  
     
     
         55 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the storage device is a hard disk drive.  
     
     
         56 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the storage device is a re-writeable optical disk.  
     
     
         57 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the storage device is random access memory.  
     
     
         58 . The system of  claim 20  wherein the data may be accessed from a public access system.  
     
     
         59 . The system of  claim 20  wherein the data be replayed instantly.  
     
     
         60 . The system of  claim 53  wherein user suitability criteria may be used to search and retrieve specific programming according to user inputs.  
     
     
         61 . The system of  claim 20  wherein the data may be recorded as a continuous loop on the built-in, high capacity, non-movable storage device as a pay-per view product.  
     
     
         62 . A recorder, comprising: 
 a receiver apparatus for receiving broadcast data from at least one data feed;    a non-movable storage device which is built into the recorder;    processing circuitry for processing the broadcast data and for storing the processed data in the storage device;    a user interface operatively connected to the processing circuitry for programming which processing functions are to be applied to the received data by the processing circuitry;    playback circuitry which reads the data from the storage device and which converts that data to electronic signals for driving playback apparatus; and    a microprocessor having software programming to control the operation of the processing circuitry and the playback circuitry enabling simultaneous read/write operations, the software programming interacting with the built-in, non-movable storage device and the playback apparatus for recording digital data products on a storage device, the software programming further interacting with the playback circuitry to allow the digital data products to be recorded and played in real time, the playback may be paused wherein a cue point in registered in memory, and later played back from the cue point while the digital data products delivered from a digital data product provider are being continuously recorded without interruption by the either the pause or the playback; and    an output channel to send the digital data to an audio/video display.    
     
     
         63 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein a playback apparatus driven by the playback circuitry plays the digital data product on demand.  
     
     
         64 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the broadcast data delivered by the system is television broadcast data and the receiver apparatus comprises a television receiver.  
     
     
         65 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the receiver apparatus is a television antenna.  
     
     
         66 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the receiver apparatus is a TV cable.  
     
     
         67 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the receiver apparatus is satellite receiver.  
     
     
         68 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the receiver apparatus is a computer network interface.  
     
     
         69 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the broadcast data is received via the internet.  
     
     
         70 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the broadcast data is advertising data, which may be stored on the non-movable storage device.  
     
     
         71 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the processing circuitry further comprises a discretionary content filter/editor which is programmable by the user interface to establish the criteria for whether a particular broadcast data is to be recorded or viewed.  
     
     
         72 . The system of  claim 62 , where the discretionary content filter/editor is programmable to establish criteria for recording based on a rating of the broadcast.  
     
     
         73 . The system of  claim 70 , wherein the discretionary content filter/editor comprises a V-chip.  
     
     
         74 . The system of  claim 71 , wherein the discretionary content filter/editor is programmable to process data according to programmable user suitability criteria.  
     
     
         75 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the data is edited in accordance with the programmable user suitability criteria, by selectively differentiating between control data tracks.  
     
     
         76 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the processing apparatus includes circuitry for decoding a control data track contained in the broadcast signal to determine whether to record the received broadcast data.  
     
     
         77 . The system of  claim 71 , wherein the discretionary content filter/editor is programmable to record broadcast data according to specific time schedules.  
     
     
         78 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the broadcast data is scrambled, wherein the scrambled broadcast data is stored in the built-in, high capacity, non-movable storage device, and wherein the processing circuitry further includes a de-scrambler to decode the stored broadcast data so that the user may obtain access to the stored data.  
     
     
         79 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the broadcast is purchased by a consumer from the broadcast data supplier.  
     
     
         80 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the data is rented by a consumer from a broadcast data supplier.  
     
     
         81 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein a simulated return of rented data may be enacted by deleting or scrambling the data from the non-movable storage device, and notifying the broadcast data supplier of the deletion.  
     
     
         82 . The system of  claim 79 , wherein the purchase transaction occurs on the consumers local device.  
     
     
         83 . The system of  claim 80 , wherein the rental transaction occurs on the consumers local device.  
     
     
         84 . The system of  claim 56 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to enable recording of the broadcast data in a continuous loop mode of operation.  
     
     
         85 . The system of  claim 77 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to enable or disable a set of user suitability criteria which determines the content of the broadcast data recorded on the non-movable storage device.  
     
     
         86 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable from a remote location.  
     
     
         87 . The system of  claim 86 , wherein the remote location is an automobile.  
     
     
         88 . The system of  claim 86 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable through an interface comprising a telephone.  
     
     
         89 . The system of  claim 88 , wherein the telephone is a wireless telephone.  
     
     
         90 . The system of  claim 86 , the processing circuitry is programmable through an interface comprising a computer.  
     
     
         91 . The system of  claim 90 , wherein the computer is a palm top computer having a wireless modem.  
     
     
         92 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to require that a password be provided by the user to obtain access to the system.  
     
     
         93 . The system of  claim 62 , further comprising a recording/playback device which utilizes a portable storage device for recording and playback of a broadcast which has been stored in the non-movable storage device.  
     
     
         94 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the receiver apparatus is a satellite receiver.  
     
     
         95 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the storage device comprises a plurality of individual storage units, each having a memory capacity.  
     
     
         96 . The system of  claim 95 , wherein the individual storage units may be programmed to a users specific suitability criteria.  
     
     
         97 . The system of  claim 96 , wherein a portion of the individual storage unit's memory capacity may be set aside for broadcast advertising data that is tailored to the users suitability criteria.  
     
     
         98 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the storage device is a hard disk drive.  
     
     
         99 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the storage device is a re-writeable optical disk.  
     
     
         100 . The system of  claim 62 , wherein the storage device is random access memory.  
     
     
         101 . A system for the processing, recording, playback and display of broadcast audio data, comprising: 
 receiver apparatus for receiving the broadcast data from at least one data feed;    a built-in, high capacity, non-movable storage device;    processing circuitry for processing the broadcast data and for storing the processed data in the storage device;    a user interface operatively connected to the processing circuitry for programming which processing functions are to be applied to the received data by the processing circuitry;    playback circuitry, which reads the data from the non-movable storage device and which, converts that data to electronic signals for driving a display;    a microprocessor having software programming to control the operation of the processing circuitry and the playback circuitry enabling simultaneous read/write operations, the software programming interacting with the built-in, non-movable storage device and the playback apparatus for recording digital data products on a storage device, the software programming further interacting with the playback circuitry to allow the digital data products to be recorded and played in real time, the playback may be paused wherein a cue point in registered in memory, and later played back from the cue point while the digital data products delivered from a digital data product provider are being continuously recorded without interruption by the either the pause or the playback; and    an audio playback apparatus which is driven by the playback circuitry.    
     
     
         102 . The system of  claim 101 , wherein the processing circuitry includes a discretionary content editor which is programmable by the user interface to establish the criteria for whether a particular audio broadcast data is to be recorded.  
     
     
         103 . The system of  claim 101 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to enable recording of the audio broadcast data in a continuous loop mode of operation.  
     
     
         104 . The system of  claim 101 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to require that a password be provided by the user to obtain access to a recorded audio broadcast.  
     
     
         105 . The system of  claim 101 , wherein the storage device is partitioned into a plurality of individual storage units.  
     
     
         106 . A system for the processing, recording, playback and display of from a local source of data, comprising: 
 receiver apparatus for receiving the data from at least one data feed;    a non-movable storage device;    processing circuitry for processing the data and for storing the processed data in the storage device;    a user interface operatively connected to the processing circuitry for programming which processing functions are to be applied to the received data by the processing circuitry;    playback circuitry, which reads the data from the non-movable storage device and which, converts that data to electronic signals for driving a display;    a microprocessor having software programming to control the operation of the processing circuitry and the playback circuitry enabling simultaneous read/write operations, the software programming interacting with the built-in, non-movable storage device and the playback apparatus for recording digital data products on a storage device, the software programming further interacting with the playback circuitry to allow the digital data products to be recorded and played in real time, the playback may be paused wherein a cue point in registered in memory, and later played back from the cue point while the digital data products delivered from a digital data product provider are being continuously recorded without interruption by the either the pause or the playback; and    a playback apparatus which is driven by the playback circuitry.    
     
     
         107 . The system of  claim 106 , wherein the local source of data is a VCR.  
     
     
         108 . The system claim of  106 , wherein the source of data is a CD player.  
     
     
         109 . The system of  claim 106 , wherein the processing circuitry includes a discretionary content editor which is programmable by the user interface to establish the criteria for whether particular data is to be recorded.  
     
     
         110 . The system of  claim 106 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to enable recording of the data in a continuous loop mode of operation.  
     
     
         111 . The system of  claim 106 , wherein the processing circuitry is programmable by the user interface to require that a password be provided by the user to obtain access to the recorded data.  
     
     
         112 . The system of  claim 1 ,  20 ,  62 ,  101  or  106  wherein a rental, a purchase or a pay-per-view transaction of a product that is copyrighted, patented, or licensed can be electronically monitored, logged and communicated to an entity concerned with collection of royalties, license fees, or enforcement of a license agreement, on the product that is copyrighted, patented, or licensed.