Systems and methods for preventing spoilers in a results display for a tournament-style competition by selectively blacking out competitor results

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12160636-B2
Application number	US-202217992243-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 22, 2022
Priority date	Dec 19, 2017
Publication date	Dec 3, 2024
Grant date	Dec 3, 2024

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for generating for display depictions of tournament-style competitions restricting user's access to any content that may spoil the results of the tournament. A user may request to view a display that contains a tournament and participating competitors. Requests may be received from users to view recordings of tournament competitions or a results display with the tournament bracket displayed. The media guidance application may access recorded versions of competitions from internal and external directories. Furthermore, the media guidance application may compare user viewing progress data and competitor progress data to ensure the user does not prematurely view results of any competitions of interest to the user. If the media guidance application determines a user's progress is less than the progress of the user's favorite team, visual representations of the competitions that may spoil the outcome of the user's favorite team's competition may be blacked out.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, by processing circuitry, a request from a first user to display results for a tournament-style competition, wherein the first user is associated with a first profile that includes a preference for a first competitor and a second user is associated with a second profile that includes a preference for a second competitor, wherein the first and second competitors are participants in the same tournament-style competition that includes multiple rounds;
determining, by processing circuitry, that the first user is related to the second user;
determining, by processing circuitry, that the first user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to a current round in which the first competitor is participating and that the second user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to a current round in which the second competitor is participating; and
in response to the determination that the first user is related to the second user and the determination that the first user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to the current round in which the first competitor is participating and that the second user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to the current round in which the second competitor is participating, omitting, by processing circuitry, results of the first and second competitor for those rounds for which either the first user or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein omitting results includes omitting results of all rounds in the tournament-style competition up to the current round for which either the first or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a threshold that constitutes consumption of a time-shifted version of a media asset related to a round of the tournament-style competition for which either the first or the second competitor participated; and
in response to determining that either the first user or the second user has consumed the time-shifted version of the media asset related to the round, wherein the consumption exceeds the threshold, identifying the time-shifted version of the media asset as fully consumed.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the threshold is a viewing percentage of the related time-shifted version of the media asset.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, determining a consumption progress of the second user with respect to a related time-shifted version of a media asset for the second competitor based on a database linked to the second profile.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the omitting, by processing circuitry, the results of the first and second competitor for those rounds for which either the first user or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets comprises generating for display, using display circuitry, a results display of the tournament-style competition, the results display blacking out any results of the first and second competitor for those rounds for which either the first user or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets, and further comprising, omitting additional results from the tournament-style competition based on blackout preferences in either the first or the second profile.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising omitting the results of the second competitor for those rounds for which the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets if the processing circuitry determines that the second user is in a line of sight of a media device on which the tournament-style competition is displayed.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising, the processing circuitry identifying the second user based on facial recognition.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising, the processing circuitry performing a periodic scan of a room in which the media device is located to determine presence of the second user.

10. The method of claim 7 , further comprising, tracking the second user to determine whether the second user has left a viewing area where the media device is located.

11. A system comprising:
communication circuitry configured to access a database storing results for a tournament-style competition; and
control circuitry configured to:
receive a request from a first user to display results for the tournament-style competition, wherein the first user is associated with a first profile that includes a preference for a first competitor and a second user is associated with a second profile that includes a preference for a second competitor, wherein the first and second competitors are participants in the same tournament-style competition that includes multiple rounds;
determine that the first user is related to the second user;
determine that the first user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to a current round in which the first competitor is participating and that the second user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to a current round in which the second competitor is participating; and
in response to the determination that the first user is related to the second user and the determination that the first user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to the current round in which the first competitor is participating and that the second user has not consumed time-shifted versions of media assets from previous rounds to catch up to the current round in which the second competitor is participating, omit results of the first and second competitor for those rounds for which either the first user or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the control circuitry is configured to omit results of all rounds in the tournament-style competition up to the current round for which either the first or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the control circuitry is configured to:
determine a threshold that constitutes consumption of a time-shifted version of a media asset related to a round of the tournament-style competition for which either the first or the second competitor participated; and
in response to determining that either the first user or the second user has consumed the time-shifted version of the media asset related to the round, wherein the consumption exceeds the threshold, identify the time-shifted version of the media asset as fully consumed.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the threshold is a viewing percentage of the related time-shifted version of the media asset.

15. The system of claim 11 , further comprising, the control circuitry configured to determine a consumption progress of the second user with respect to a related time-shifted version of a media asset for the second competitor based on a database linked to the second profile.

16. The system of claim 11 , wherein the control circuitry is configured to omit the results of the first and second competitor for those rounds for which either the first user or the second user has not consumed related time-shifted versions of media assets by generating for display, us

Assignees

• Adeia Guides Inc

Inventors

• Patel Milan Indu

Classifications

• H04N21/482

  End-user interface for programme selection · CPC title

• H04N21/47217

  for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks (specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312) · CPC title

• H04N21/47214

  for content reservation or setting reminders; for requesting event notification, e.g. of sport results or stock market (stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; notification of incoming messages in packet switching networks H04L51/224) · CPC title

• H04N21/4532 Primary

  involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences (monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18) · CPC title

• H04N21/47202

  for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand · CPC title