KR20040090169A - Method and system for providing digital contents using character product - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method and a system for offering digital contents using character articles are provided to offer the associated contents on the online based on transaction of actual characters present on the offline. CONSTITUTION: A reading information transmitter(16) is mounted on a client terminal(15), receives reading information for a data storage installed to the character article(1), and transmits the reading information to a certification tool(31). A database(34) stores ID information uniquely assigned to the character articles and character related contents matched with the ID information. The certification tool certifies validity for the ID information of the character based on the information stored in the database after receiving the reading information from the reading information transmitter.

Description

Method and system for providing digital contents using character goods {Method and system for providing digital contents using character product}

The present invention relates to a method and a system for providing digital contents, and more particularly, to a method and system for providing digital contents in which relevant contents are provided online according to the sale of real characters made offline.

The various contents serviced through the Internet are the core resources that lead the information society, and for the modern people, these contents have become the main means of providing convenience of life, satisfying intellectual curiosity, and vitality of life. .

In particular, as character goods that image people and animals and animals appearing in various contents such as games, movies, dramas, music, and cartoons have become popular, a lot of attention has been focused on how to effectively combine contents and their character resources. ought.

However, despite such interests, the content market and related character markets are usually growing independently of each other, and both markets are weak except for a dramatic increase in the awareness of the content or character. It is a general trend.

Therefore, in order to solve this problem, a solution for enhancing synergy by promoting or marketing contents and related characters to each other should be conducted.

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and an object thereof is to provide a digital content providing method and system for providing related contents online based on the sale of real characters existing offline.

The following drawings attached to this specification are illustrative of preferred embodiments of the present invention, and together with the detailed description of the invention to serve to further understand the technical spirit of the present invention, the present invention is a matter described in such drawings It should not be construed as limited to

1 is a block diagram of a digital content providing system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a process of performing a digital content providing method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

<Description of main reference numerals in the drawings>

1 ... character goods 10 ... reading means

15 ... Client terminal 16 ... Reading information transmission means

20 ... Network 30 ... Content provision server

31 Authentication means 32 Content supply means

34a ... Identification DB 34b ... Character related content DB

In order to achieve the above object, a digital content providing method according to the present invention includes a first step of reading unique identification information from a data storage means provided in a purchased character article and inputting the same to a client terminal; A second step of inputting the read information to a content providing server to undergo a validity authentication process; And a third step of allowing access to content associated with the character, corresponding to authenticated identification information.

Preferably, the data storage means may be made of an RFID tag.

The second step may further include transmitting and displaying an image of the character to a client terminal as an indication of authentication confirmation.

The third step may further include requesting the client terminal to input login information for content access.

According to another aspect of the invention, the read information transmission means for being mounted on the client terminal, receives the read information for the data storage means provided in the character article and transmits it to the authentication means; A database unit for storing identification information uniquely assigned to a character article and corresponding character related contents; Authentication means for authenticating validity of the identification information unique to the character based on the information stored in the database after receiving the read information from the read information transmission means; And content supply means for allowing access to content corresponding to the authenticated identification information.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Prior to this, terms or words used in the specification and claims should not be construed as having a conventional or dictionary meaning, and the inventors should properly explain the concept of terms in order to best explain their own invention. Based on the principle that can be defined, it should be interpreted as meaning and concept corresponding to the technical idea of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments described in the specification and the drawings shown in the drawings are only the most preferred embodiment of the present invention and do not represent all of the technical idea of the present invention, various modifications that can be replaced at the time of the present application It should be understood that there may be equivalents and variations.

1 is a system configuration diagram for performing a digital content providing method according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, the present invention establishes a connection between the read information transmitting means 16 provided on the side of the client terminal 15 to which the reading means 10 is connected, and the client terminal 15 via the network 20. It comprises a content providing server 30 to make up. Here, the wired or wireless Internet is preferably employed as the network 20, but the present invention is not necessarily limited thereto.

The reading means 10 reads the identification information unique to the article from the data storage means (not shown) provided in advance in the character article 1 purchased by the user. The technical configuration of the reading means 10 may be modified into a reading device suitable for the type of the data storage means. For example, when the data storage means is made of a conventional RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag, the reading means 10 has a technical configuration of an RFID reader.

The character article 1 refers to the characterization of a character associated with a particular digital content on-line. For example, the character article 1 may be a tank model appearing in the online game content 'fortress', a rabbit doll appearing in the flash 'slapstick rabbit', and a singer associated with a particular song content. It can be a cell phone decoration that imaged the appearance.

As the data storage means for storing the identification information uniquely assigned to the character article 1, a conventional RFID tag that can be easily attached to a small article and can be read in a non-contact manner is preferably employed. However, the present invention is not limited to this configuration, and the data storage means may be made of various media such as a barcode or a magnetic recording medium.

The reading information transmitting means 16 corresponds to a client program mounted on the client terminal 15 to interoperate with the content providing server 30. The reading information transmitting means 16 receives read information from the reading means 10 and receives the content providing server ( 30) has a function to transmit to the side. Here, the client terminal 15 may correspond to various terminal devices capable of data communication with the content providing server 30 such as a general personal computer and a mobile communication terminal.

In the content providing server 30, content material corresponding to the character item 1 to be sold is previously built into a database in response to a request from a character or / and a content related company. The content providing server 30 performs an authentication process on the read information transmitted from the client terminal 15 and selectively permits access to the corresponding digital content according to the result.

For this operation, the content providing server 30 is provided with a database unit 34, authentication means 31 and the content supply means 32.

The database unit 34 includes an identification information DB 34a for storing identification information uniquely assigned to each character article 1, and a character-related content DB 34b for storing digital content corresponding to the identification information. .

The identification information DB 34a may be provided with a table including fields such as a unique code, a product name, a related content description, and a content usage period for the character article 1.

In addition, the digital content corresponding to the character article 1 is stored in the character-related content DB 34b. Here, the digital content may include, for example, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) documents, various digital information provided through wired / wireless communication networks such as game software, movies, and MP3 data. The character-related content DB (34b) is not necessarily limited to being built in the content providing server 30, of course, may be an external content provider (CP) server to work with the content providing server 30.

The authentication means 31 is a module that receives the read information from the client terminal 15 and authenticates the validity of the character article 1 based on the information stored in the identification information DB 34a. That is, the authentication means 31 performs an authentication process on whether or not the currently read character article 1 is a registered article in the service, whether or not the related contents can be used effectively. In the present invention, the authentication means 31 may be a separate external authentication server that is interlocked with the content providing server 30, of course.

After authentication is made through the authentication means 31, the user's access to the corresponding content is allowed through the content supply means 32 linked with the database 34. In particular, the content supply means 32 receives a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request for accessing a web page 33 identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or a multimedia playback request to the user's communication terminal. The digital content will be provided.

Next, a process of performing the digital content providing method according to the present invention having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIG. 2.

In the present invention, in the content providing server 30, the content material corresponding to the character item 1 to be sold is constructed in advance as a database in response to a request from a character related company or a content related company.

The character article 1 is preferably provided with data storage means corresponding to an RFID tag, in which the identification information corresponding to the corresponding content data stored in the content providing server 30 is stored.

Therefore, when the character goods 1 purchased by the user are brought close to the reading means 10, a reading process for identification information unique to the character goods is performed and input to the client terminal 15 (step S10).

Subsequently, the read information is transmitted from the client terminal 15 to the content providing server 30 and then subjected to an authentication process for validity of the character article 1 through the authentication means 31 (step S20).

By the authentication process, it is determined whether the registration status of the character article 1 or the validity period of the corresponding content is valid (step S30), and if it is determined to be invalid accordingly, the authentication means 31 receives the client terminal 15. In the step S40, it is notified that the content cannot be provided.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the authentication process is valid, the authentication means 31 outputs information for notifying the authentication confirmation to the client terminal 15 (step S50). At this time, it is also possible to transmit the image of the character to the client terminal 15 and display it on the monitor as an indication for confirming the authentication confirmation.

After the authentication is confirmed, the content providing server 30 may output a message requesting input of login information to the client terminal 15. Therefore, the user can register the login information on the content providing server 30 side, and if necessary for a predetermined period of time, the user can log in to the content providing server 30 and request the permitted contents.

Alternatively, the content providing server 30 may give a predetermined access keyword to the client terminal 15 so that the content can be used if necessary. Alternatively, it is also possible to ask the user for input of an e-mail address in order to send an e-mail of allowed content.

On the other hand, if the user clicks on the character image output to the client terminal 15 or the content request event is received by the content providing server 30 by the operation of logging in to the content providing server 30 (step S60), Through the content supply means 32 of the content providing server 30, the character-related content corresponding to the identification information of the character article 1 is provided (step S70).

Although the present invention has been described above by means of limited embodiments and drawings, the present invention is not limited thereto and will be described below by the person skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains. Of course, various modifications and variations are possible within the scope of the claims.

According to the present invention, the purchase of the actual character product is used, so that payment for the corresponding character-related content is substantially performed, thereby inducing the sale of the digital content to the off-line transaction, and as a result, the digital content market can be activated more.

In the case of providing the digital content by applying the present invention, it is possible to improve the recognition of the content and increase the purchase desire for the character goods.

Claims (6)

A first step in which the unique identification information is read from the data storage means provided in the purchased character article and input to the client terminal; A second step of inputting the read information to a content providing server to undergo a validity authentication process; And And a third step of allowing access to content associated with the character, corresponding to authenticated identification information. The method of claim 1, The data storage means is a digital content providing method characterized in that the RFID tag. The method of claim 1, In the second step, as an indication of the authentication confirmation, transmitting the image of the character to the client terminal for displaying; further comprising the digital content providing method. The method of claim 1, Requesting input of login information for content access to the client terminal in the third step. Read information transmission means mounted on the client terminal and receiving read information on the data storage means included in the character article and transmitting the read information to the authentication means; A database unit for storing identification information uniquely assigned to a character article and corresponding character related contents; Authentication means for authenticating validity of the identification information unique to the character based on the information stored in the database after receiving the read information from the read information transmission means; And And content supply means for allowing access to content corresponding to the authenticated identification information. The method of claim 5, The data storage means is a digital content providing system, characterized in that the RFID tag.