TODAY’S PATENT – INTERNET ACCESS VIA ONE-WAY TELEVISION CHANNELS

This invention was invented by Gutman Levitan and was assigned to the Virtel Corp. Later the USPTO granted utility patent to the invention bearing the patent grant number. US6698023B2 On 24^th February 2004.

This invention can be described a method of providing access to Internet content that, unlike e-mail, is intended for an audience rather than a specific person using one-way TV channels. An Internet server located at a television transmission facility downloads Web pages from websites and broadcasts them over a television network to an infinite number of client computers at once.

In order for client computers, each of which has its own selection list, to automatically download pages of interest, the server provides client computers in advance with a timetable listing each Web page scheduled for transmission along with the time and channel of the transmission. The provision of a robust, highly automated search engine that compares information about Web pages included in the timetable file with information about users’ interests stored in client computers is another goal of the invention.