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

12160,636

17/992243

November 22, 2022

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.

Adeia Guides, Inc. (San Jose, CA, US)

Adeia Guides Inc. (San Jose, CA, US)

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, 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, the control circuitry configured to omit additional results from the tournament-style competition based on blackout preferences in either the first or the second profile.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the control circuitry is configured to omit 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 control circuitry determines that the second user is in a line of sight of a media device on which the tournament-style competition is displayed.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the control circuitry is configured to identify the second user based on facial recognition.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the control circuitry is further configured to perform a periodic scan of a room in which the media device is located to determine presence of the second user.

20. The system of claim 17 , wherein the control circuitry is further configured to track the second user to determine whether the second user has left a viewing area where the media device is located.

6239794 May 2001 Yuen et al.
6564378 May 2003 Satterfield et al.
7165098 January 2007 Boyer et al.
7370343 May 2008 Ellis
7761892 July 2010 Ellis et al.
8046801 October 2011 Ellis et al.
11153647 October 2021 Patel
11540015 December 2022 Patel
2002/0174430 November 2002 Ellis et al.
2004/0043810 March 2004 Perlin et al.
2005/0251827 November 2005 Ellis et al.
2006/0282852 December 2006 Purpura et al.
2007/0044133 February 2007 Hodecker
2007/0122108 May 2007 Bontempi
2007/0154163 July 2007 Cordray
2007/0214478 September 2007 Feldstein et al.
2008/0024420 January 2008 Nakai et al.
2008/0195664 August 2008 Maharajh et al.
2008/0209472 August 2008 Shanks et al.
2008/0229352 September 2008 Pino et al.
2008/0270886 October 2008 Gossweiler et al.
2009/0158350 June 2009 Decamp
2010/0083301 April 2010 Swenson
2010/0153885 June 2010 Yates
2012/0129610 May 2012 Mazursky et al.
2013/0116044 May 2013 Schwartz
2013/0297706 November 2013 Arme et al.
2014/0121013 May 2014 Carson et al.
2015/0082344 March 2015 Antalek
2016/0082348 March 2016 Kehoe et al.
2016/0212492 July 2016 Mori
2016/0371361 December 2016 Chino et al.
2018/0048936 February 2018 Gupta et al.
2019/0191199 June 2019 Patel
2021/0056750 February 2021 Rowley
2021/0176529 June 2021 Patel
2022/0007076 January 2022 Patel
2079236 July 2009
0033576 June 2000

PCT International Search Report for International Application No. PCT/US2017/067439, dated Apr. 23, 2018 (16 pages). cited by applicant

edspgr.12160636