(19)Fresh off Patent
(45) Week of Oct 19, 2026 No. 7 3,667 lapsed 70 listed
Fintech & commerce · expires at full term Oct 25, 2026

Asynchronous ad selection and personalization for downloaded media

System for selecting, filtering and personalizing media ads for podcast-style content by using metadata and a periodically updated user profile. An ad server receives feed or content metadata and ad-campaign criteria, applies user acceptability rules, produces a personalized set of ad files and stores them on the user device for asynchronous insertion into subscribed media. Target users are publishers, podcast platforms and ad servers serving downloaded or cached media to end-user devices.

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(57) What the patent covered

This write-up was generated by AI from the patent's text and may contain mistakes, so check it against the original patent before relying on it.

The main independent claim covers an ad server that receives metadata for media content files and ad-based criteria linking ad campaigns to those files, uses a periodically updated user profile containing acceptability rules to filter campaigns, personalizes ad files based on media-file characteristics and ad criteria, and stores the personalized ad set on the user device for later inclusion in the media content.

Distinguishing feature: Associating ad campaigns with media files via their metadata and using a periodically refreshed user profile with acceptability rules to filter and pre-store personalized ad files on the user device for asynchronous insertion.

Novelty 3/5. When filed (mid 2000s), podcast feeds and local caching were common; the patent combined per-file metadata-based campaign association and client-side stored personalized ads, which was a practical improvement on standard server-side ad insertion.

Implementation

Build an ad server that parses feed metadata (RSS/Atom/enclosures), stores ad-campaign criteria linking campaign IDs to feed or item metadata, and exposes an API the client subscribes to; implement a client-side agent that syncs periodically to pull a user profile and a filtered set of pre-personalized ad files (audio/video) and stores them locally; at playback time, have the player read media-item metadata, request a matching ad file from local storage and insert it into the media timeline. Use standard web servers, JSON APIs, OAuth for user profile access and S3 or CDN for ad media hosting.

Components: Ad server (application), content servers / RSS/Atom feeds with metadata, user device local storage and playback client, user profile store (server-side), communication network (HTTP/HTTPS).

Buildability 5/5. Main work is engineering integration: feed parsing, campaign matching logic and client sync; no special hardware or exotic data required.

Market demand

No demand check has been run for this patent. Likely search terms: podcast ad insertion preloaded ads, client-side personalized audio ads, metadata-based ad campaign matching. The links in the sidebar open these searches.

Buyers: Podcast platforms, mobile media players, ad networks serving downloaded media.

Before manufacturing

This patent has 2 related US patents (continuation, divisional or parent) that may remain in force: US 9,367,862, US 8,676,900. Review their claims before proceeding.

Patent lapsed; practical risks are implementation complexity (sync, storage limits, DRM), privacy/compliance for user profiles, and crowded market with existing ad-insertion SDKs and standards.

This patent's full term ends on Oct 25, 2026. A patent that has run its full term cannot be revived. This page is a research lead, not legal advice. Obtain a freedom-to-operate opinion before manufacturing.

Claim 1, as granted

1. A method for content filtering, the method comprising: receiving information at an ad server regarding one or more media content files provided to a user device by one or more content servers, wherein each of the media content files includes metadata reflecting characteristics used to organize the respective media content file; receiving ad-based criteria at the ad server, wherein the ad-based criteria associates one or more ad campaigns with at least one of the media content files, wherein the criteria concern personalization of ad files in at least one of the ad campaigns for a user of the user device based on information in an associated user profile that is updated on a periodic basis and includes acceptability rules that indicate what types of digital ad files the user does and does not want to receive; executing instructions stored in memory by a processor of the ad server, the instructions executed to: filter one or more of the associated ad campaigns based on the acceptability rules, and personalize at least one of the ad files from the filtered ad campaigns to provide a personalized set of ad files for play on the user device, wherein personalizing the at least one ad file is based on characteristics of the at least one media content file and the ad-based criteria associated with each ad file in the personalized set, wherein the personalized set of ad files is stored in memory of the user device, and wherein the personalized set of ad files is included in a stored history; tracking, by the ad server, which of the personalized set of ad files have been played within a predetermined time period, wherein a plug-in client recalls the played ad files upon request from the memory to be played on the user device; and updating, by the ad server, the stored personalized set of ad files in memory with a new personalized set of ad files that have been filtered based on updates to the user profile information on the user device, wherein the new personalized set of ad files is stitched into media content files subsequently played on the user device.