AU2006100096A4 - Database compilation system - Google Patents

Description

TITLE: DATABASE COMPILATION SYSTEM FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to systems for creating a database of information such as a television schedule.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION It is well accepted that television program guides have great utility and appeal.

In printed form, they are commonly used to ascertain what events, or TV programs are available for viewing, what channel they can be viewed on, at what time, as well as numerous other attributes of interest such as program ratings.

In electronic form, they are used to display the TV guide on a TV screen or computer screen, for example using a website.

In some cases TV guides are published by syndicators who obtain the schedule of events from each program provider and copy this information into a single document or an electronic database. However in some cases, the program providers do not make their schedules available for this purpose, or for commercial reasons it is desirable to create a TV guide or database of events without the involvement of the program providers.

Although it is technically a simple matter to copy a TV guide from a publiclyaccessible source, such as a website, this may infringe the rights of the author.

Therefore an alternative method of creating a database of events is often desirable.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of this invention to provide a system and process for compiling a database of information, said system and process being constructed so that other authors' copyright is not infringed.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a system and process for compiling a database of information which is an original copyright work.

In some embodiments, said compiled database is a schedule of television programs.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method of compiling a schedule database is provided comprising the steps of: 1. Entering into a database a first set of elements including at least the names of events; and 2. Entering into said database a second set of elements defining the chronological schedule of the elements of said first set of elements In some embodiments of the invention the schedule database is a television program schedule database and the names of events are names of television programs.

According to another aspect of the inventive concept, the step of defining the chronological schedule comprises selecting one choice from a menu of options said options comprising a subset of said first set of elements.

In another aspect, the invention comprises computing means, database software and user interface software adapted to create a database by means of an operator: 1. Entering into a database a first set of elements including at least the names of events; and 2. For each of a plurality of scheduled events, associating elements of said first set of elements with at least a time.

In another aspect, the invention further comprises means for automatically predicting a schedule of future events based on rules. In some embodiments the invention can be further adapted to provides means for reviewing and editing said predicted schedule.

According to another aspect, the invention can be adapted to prompt an operator for information describing television events and enter the operator's response into the database.

In another aspect, the invention further comprises means for constructing a schedule of events by querying the database populated according to the foregoing methods.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodimnents of the invention will now be described with reference to the drawings in which Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring now to Fig. 1, the element collection phase of the invention will be described. Element collection 2 is a collection of lists of elements grouped by type of element, including program names, program synopses, episode names, channels, start times, durations, ratings and genres. These lists are not related to each other in this collection, they are merely lists of elements of a certain type.

Elements are entered into element collection 2 using data entry system I. For example, an operator populates the "programs" list by entering thile names of all TV programs that might be broadcast in a region of interest. This information could be gathered by watching TV broadcasts for a period of time and entering the names of all programs observed, or by researching a TV guide listing in a newspaper, or by browsing TV station or TV production company websites, or by a combination of such methods. As element collection 2 does not include relationships between elements of different types, the entry step does not require any reference to when a particular program is scheduled, or any other related data such as the episode name or channel that it might be broadcast on.

A typical program list might contain: A Big Country Revisited A Brilliant Madness A Bunch of Fives A Christmas Celebration A Close Shave A Current Affair A Fine Body of Gentlemen A Fork in the Road A Night with Secret Garden A Place Down Under A Place in France A Place in Greece A Yen For A Dollar ABC Midday News And Business ABC News Abortion Ship According to Jim Aerobics Oz Style Afghanistan Hell of a Nation African Penguin: Cool Birds in a Hot Spot Similarly, the operator populates the other lists, for example by entering into the "episodes" list the names of all episodes of TV programs relevant to the geographical area of interest, and such a list might look like: A fish called selma All's fair in love and war Bart of darkness Chock full 'o nuts Everybody's talking about sex Picture imperfect Similarly, the operator inputs lists of all possible ratings, genres, start times, durations, channels, synopses etc. Again, these are not related to each other at this stage. The operator is simply creating lists of all possible elements ofa particular type.

When creating synopses, the operator may refer to multiple sources of information about the program concerned. For example he may read several movie reviews, or watch the movie itself, and write a synopsis based on this research. In1 this way the list can be populated without infringing anyone's copyright.

Referring again to Fig 1, the event compilation phase of the invention will now be described. In this phase the operator makes associations between the elements of element collection 2 to create event table 4. Event table 4 is a set of records associating (typically) a program name, time and channel to create an event record. It may also associate other elements of element collection 2 with anll event. For example, the third event in event table 4 might be created by the operator first selecting a program name from the available program names inll element collection 2, shown in this example as being selected from a scrolling list appearing on the user interface. A relationship is thereby established between event 3 and this program name. The operator then discovers, for example by reference to a TV station's website, the start time at which the program of this event is scheduled to start, and selects the appropriate time from amongst the available start times. Similarly, the operator makes relationships between the event and the appropriate episode name, synopsis, duration, rating, genre and channel. He can then proceed to populate another event in like manner.

Once event table 4 has been populated, the database can be queried to provide schedule data keyed on any of the event elements. For example, an television display can be arranged to display a TV schedule by querying the database for events keyed chronologically.

It will be understood that the foregoing embodiment of the invention is presented by way of example only and many variations are possible without departing from the scope of the invention. In one embodiment, a feature of this invention is that the event table is populated by selecting elements from a set of possible values and making associations between them. H-lence a useful table can be constructed without copying from other sources which could otherwise infringe other party's copyright.

In another embodiment of the invention, the operator first fills in a form which specifies a start date, time and channel for the day to be populated. This information 6 IDcan be entered by typing into a field, or by selecting from drop-down lists or popup 0 prompting forms.

F. Such information can include the name of the program, the scheduled stalrt time of the event, the name of the episode, the program synopsis and other details.

IND The invention then displays its prediction of what is showing on that channel at each timeslot in turn. This prediction can be calculated with reference to prior events, for example by extrapolation from what program was shown at that time the previous IN 10 week. The operator checks this prediction against whatever sources are available, and either clicks "Next" to move on to the next record, or makes whatever corrections are required.

This process continues for as long as desired, then the operator clicks "End" to finish the session for that channel.

The first time the invention is used, all fields will be empty, so the operator will need to research the requested information for every record. Subsequently, many records will be correctly predicted and the operator need only check and confirm.

Automation can be applied to the invention to improve accuracy and efficiency, for example a spell-checker can be used to alert/correct typographical errors based on a dictionary built over time, or auto-complete of data entry can reduce keystrokes required.

In other embodiments, software can be arranged to predict event tables based on prescribed rules. For example, in the simplest case, the events for one channel may be predicted from the events scheduled for another channel if both channels are fed from the same network. In other cases, exception rules can be included such as "between 19:00 and 19:30 program is Perth News" so that for example a Perth guide can be predicted from a Sydney guide where it is known that the programming is identical except for the name of the nightly news program. More complex rules can be constructed, such as "predict based on channel 10 except on Sunday predict based on channel 12".

7 According to another variation of the invention, the database is populated using a software system known to the art as a wizard. The wizard prompts for the elements required to populate the lists and create the tables, again achieving the desired database without copying another source.

It will also be understood that while the invention is described herein as relating to schedules and TV guides, the invention can also be applied beneficially to compiling other useful databases. For example the invention can be used to create a database of real-estate sales including descriptions of the property, location and sale price. This information can be compiled without copying.

Claims (4)

1. A method of compiling a schedule database comprising the steps of: Entering into a database a first set of elements including at least the names of events; and Entering into said database a second set of elements defining the chronological schedule of the elements of said first set of elements.

2. A method of compiling a schedule database according to claim I wherein said schedule database is a television program guide.

3. Computing means adapted to create a database by means of an operator: Entering into a database a first set of elements including at least the names of events; and For each of a plurality of scheduled events, associating elements of said first set of elements with at least a time.

4. A method of generating a schedule of future events comprising the steps of: predicting a future schedule by replicating a previous schedule assuming the events of the previous schedule will be repeated after a predetermined time; and correcting errors in the predicted future schedule. Computing means adapted to create a schedule of future events by: predicting a future schedule by replicating a previous schedule assuming the events of the previous schedule will be repeated after a predetermined time; and correcting errors in the predicted future schedule.