Obviousness

The US patent 7818777 describes an integrated system of methods and apparatus for communicating programming, focusing on automated control, user-specific information generation, and comprehensive monitoring at subscriber stations through embedded signals. The patent itself identifies several limitations of the prior art it purports to overcome. A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) at the time of the invention (priority date 1981-11-03) would have been motivated to combine existing technologies to address these known limitations and achieve a more interactive, personalized, and robustly managed media distribution system.

Below are combinations of prior art references that would render key aspects of US7818777 obvious, along with the motivation for a POSITA to combine them:

Combination 1: Dataspeed/Equatorial + Bourassin et al. + Haselwood/Crosby/Greenberg + Addressable Systems

This combination addresses the core aspects of US7818777, particularly the generation of user-specific information, its synchronized overlay on broadcast programming, and the use of embedded signals for control and metering.

Prior Art Elements:

1. Dataspeed Corporation / Equatorial Communications Company systems: These systems transmitted real-time financial data over radio frequencies or satellite to microcomputers equipped with "modios" (radio receivers, modems, decryptors). Subscribers could program their apparatus to select data of interest.

   • Relevant Teaching: Delivery of digital data to local microcomputers for user-selected processing and display.
   • Limitation (as noted by US7818777): "It only transmits data; it does not control data processing. No system is preprogrammed to simultaneously control a plurality of central processor units... None has capacity to cause simultaneous generation of user specific information at a plurality of receiver stations... in ways that are not inputted by the subscribers."

2. U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,480 to Bourassin et al.: Describes a dynamic interconnection system for connecting a television receiver to a plurality of television peripheral units, including the ability to superimpose a secondary image (image-within-image) from a peripheral unit upon the primary image on the television display.

   • Relevant Teaching: Technical means for overlaying graphic or video information from a local source onto a broadcast television signal.
   • Limitation (as noted by US7818777): "It has no capacity for interconnecting or operating a system at any time other than the time when the order to do so is entered manually at the system or remote keyboard. It has no capacity for acting on instructions transmitted by broadcasters to interconnect, actuate or tune systems peripheral to a television receiver or to actuate a television receiver or automatically change channels received by a receiver."

3. U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,851 to Haselwood et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,845,391 to Crosby, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,547,804 to Greenberg: These patents describe systems for monitoring programming by means of embedded digital or audio signals, with Greenberg specifically mentioning monitoring a plurality of channels.

   • Relevant Teaching: The technical feasibility of embedding signals in broadcast transmissions (video or audio) for later detection and processing, and the concept of monitoring media usage.
   • Limitation (as noted by US7818777): These systems were primarily for identification and monitoring, lacking the capacity for active control or processing, for handling encrypted signals, or for simultaneously recording and transferring data remotely.

4. "Addressable" systems: The prior art includes "addressable" systems that had the capacity to control specific individual subscriber station apparatus (e.g., decoder/decryptor units) by means of control instructions transmitted in broadcasts, such as turning them on or off for billing purposes.

   • Relevant Teaching: The concept of a broadcaster sending commands within a broadcast stream to remotely control specific subscriber equipment.
   • Limitation (as noted by US7818777): "It has no capacity for decrypting combined media programming. It has no capacity for identifying then selectively decrypting control instructions embedded in unencrypted programming transmissions... It has no capacity for automatically identifying decryption keys... It has no capacity for identifying and recording the identity of what is input to or output from a decryptor."

Motivation for Combination and Obviousness:

A POSITA in the early 1980s would be strongly motivated to combine these technologies to enhance broadcast media with greater interactivity, personalization, and precise control, driven by commercial interests in personalized advertising, pay-per-view, and detailed audience metrics.

1. Automating Local Processing and Overlay (Dataspeed + Bourassin et al. + Haselwood/Crosby/Greenberg + Addressable Systems):

   • The Dataspeed/Equatorial systems demonstrated the value of delivering digital information (e.g., financial data) to local computers for user-driven processing. However, they lacked central control over this processing.
   • Bourassin et al. provided a mechanism for displaying locally generated content (e.g., graphics) as an overlay on a standard television picture.
   • The monitoring systems (Haselwood et al., Crosby, Greenberg) established that signals could be embedded within broadcast transmissions without interfering with the primary content and detected at the receiver.
   • Addressable systems showed that broadcast signals could carry specific commands to control subscriber equipment (e.g., turning a decoder on/off).

   A POSITA would find it obvious to integrate these. Recognizing the limitation that Dataspeed-like systems did not allow broadcasters to control local data processing, and that Bourassin's overlays were manually triggered, the motivation would be to use the established technique of embedding control signals (from Haselwood/Crosby/Greenberg, and similar to Addressable Systems' commands) within the broadcast to remotely instruct the local microcomputer (from Dataspeed-like systems) to process specific data (e.g., real-time portfolio performance from local storage or updated broadcast data), generate a graphic, and then synchronously trigger the overlay mechanism (from Bourassin et al.) to display this user-specific graphic on the television screen at a precisely timed moment relevant to the broadcast content (e.g., during a financial news program). This directly addresses the '777 patent's "Wall Street Week" example (FIG. 1C) and the concept of "combining synch commands."

2. Enhanced Metering and Conditional Access (Haselwood/Crosby/Greenberg + Addressable Systems):

   • Existing monitoring systems could identify programming via embedded signals, and addressable systems could enable/disable access for billing.
   • The limitation in prior monitoring systems was their inability to record and simultaneously transfer information to a remote geographic location or to decrypt embedded signals for more complex control.

   A POSITA would be motivated to combine the granular identification capability of embedded monitoring signals with the remote control and billing infrastructure of addressable systems. This would lead to the obvious development of "meter-monitor segments" in the broadcast stream (as described in FIG. 2F of US7818777), allowing for the automated collection of detailed usage data (e.g., what programming is used, how it is used, and by whom) and its automatic transfer to remote billing or ratings stations. The ability to encrypt these meter-monitor signals or control them with encrypted instructions would be an obvious extension, building on the general knowledge of encryption used in Dataspeed's "modios" and addressable systems' decryptors.

3. Unified Control System for Diverse Apparatus (Dataspeed/Equatorial + Bourassin et al. + Lambert + Addressable Systems):

   • Dataspeed/Equatorial involved local computers. Bourassin et al. involved TV and peripherals. Lambert involved a minicomputer controlling video players. Addressable systems controlled decoders.
   • A significant limitation of much of the prior art (e.g., Bourassin et al., Freeman et al., Lambert) was the lack of capacity for broadcaster-transmitted instructions to interconnect, actuate, or tune a variety of different systems and peripherals beyond a single TV or video player, or to do so automatically rather than manually.

   Given the increasing prevalence of various electronic devices in homes and offices (computers, VCRs, printers, etc.), a POSITA would recognize the significant advantage of a "unified signal system" (SPAM) that could control this diverse array of "ultimate receiver station apparatus" through embedded signals (derived from monitoring systems and addressable control concepts). The motivation would be to streamline control, enable complex combined media experiences (e.g., simultaneous radio and television events, or print-outs synchronized with TV), and improve overall efficiency in content delivery and management. The '777 patent's emphasis on controlling "furnace control units" or "utilities meters" further represents an obvious application of broadcast-based remote control (from addressable systems) to other household or commercial devices, extending the concept of automated control beyond entertainment media.

In summary, the key elements of US7818777 – remote, synchronized, broadcast-driven control of local computer processing to generate and overlay user-specific information, coupled with sophisticated, embedded-signal-based metering and reporting – represent an obvious combination of existing technologies in data transmission to local computers, video overlay techniques, embedded signal detection, and remote addressable control, all driven by clear motivations to enhance the interactivity, personalization, and commercial viability of broadcast media.