Education and demonstration – Question or problem eliciting response – Response of plural examinees communicated to monitor or...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-29
2001-10-30
Cheng, Joe H. (Department: 3713)
Education and demonstration
Question or problem eliciting response
Response of plural examinees communicated to monitor or...
C434S247000, C434S30700R
Reexamination Certificate
active
06311041
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not applicable.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not applicable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to communication systems and methods, and more particularly, is a multi-media network-based communication system and method primarily for training sports officials.
Quality sports officiating results from having an experienced, well-trained staff of sports officials. One of the primary techniques presently employed to train sports officials involves taping sports games, selecting from the taping instructive plays, and providing video tapes of such plays to the sports officials for review. Plays of instructive value include those where: 1) an official's call was inaccurate; 2) a similar game situation has been dissimilarly officiated; 3) a player in violation of a game rule has discovered a way to avoid having a call made against them; or 4) the subject game situation occurs infrequently or involves resolving complex game rules. Typically, a training authority for a sports league tapes the games, selects the desired plays, and provides the instructional tapes to their field of officials, along with a description of the lessons demonstrated by the accompanying tapes.
This training scheme has several drawbacks, each resulting from the common sports league practice of employing a large field of officials that either live in the different cities having sports venues, or travel around the country (on a weekly basis) to their assigned games. In other words, the intended recipients of the instructional tapes (i.e., the officials) are many, spread out across the country, and frequently, in transit from one city to another to officiate.
As a result, a separate instructional tape must be made for every official in the league. As is commonly the case, there are many league officials, meaning that the cost to purchase tapes is not insignificant. Adding to this is the notion that such training tapes must be prepared and distributed every week during the sports season, to cover the latest officiating pointers from the previous week's games. Moreover, there are considerable added costs to priority ship the tapes on a weekly basis across the country to every official. Aside from the cost issue in preparing and shipping the tapes across the country each week to every official, it has been difficult to successfully coordinate the tape shipments with the officials' hectic travel schedules. Consequently, despite the heavy investment in time and money to prepare and ship the tapes, officials frequently fail to receive the latest tapes in a timely manner, which may impact the quality of their officiating.
Supplementing the tapes in the training effort, the league's training authority frequently sends tests and recent rule clarifications to its staff of officials. Presently, such tests are sent out by priority mail to the officiating staff, and the completed tests are similarly returned to the training authority for evaluation. The scheme in use today to disseminate rule clarifications to the officials involves explanation by way of telephone call or facsimile report. The burdensome cost and coordination issues noted above with respect to the preparation and shipping of training tapes also apply to these latter two training techniques.
Thus, there is a need for a multi-media network-based communication system and method for training sports officials.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The system and method embodying the present invention provide a site on a network accessible to a staff of officials from a sports league to facilitate more consistent and correct officiating of games played under league rules.
From broadcasts of league games, certain game segments are selected as being valuable for training the officials. Such selections are typically made by a training authority for the league. Game segments that are valuable for training officials include those where: 1) an official's call is inaccurate; 2) a similar game situation is dissimilarly officiated; 3) a player in violation of a game rule uses a technique to avoid having an official render a call against them; 4) the subject game situation is one that occurs infrequently or involves resolving complex game rules; or 5) the training authority otherwise determines that the game segment is of training value. The selected game segments are digitized and formatted for posting on the site, such segments being accessible via links on the site to multi-media files for presenting audio-visual or visual-only representations of the selected game segments. Similarly, the training authority selects certain comments and/or questions that are posted with the links to the related digitized game segments. Such comments and/or questions are reviewed by an official to describe, suggest, or evoke a lesson to be learned from their review of a related digitized game segment. Additionally provided to the officials over the site are periodic tests and rule clarifications intended to further sharpen their officiating skills.
This system and method obviates the prior need to periodically send to every official multiple training tapes, tests, and rule clarifications, averting the undesired cost with sending such shipments. Similarly, the previous difficulty in having such shipments reach a staff of on-the-move officials is now overcome, as this approach ensures that the officials will receive newly-posted training materials, regardless of the officials' travel patterns. As a consequence, the officiating of league games will improve in both consistency and accuracy. Additionally, the system and method of the present invention provide a scheme to widen accessibility to the training-related information traditionally provided only to officials, such that team players, owners, fans, and the like may be granted access to review such materials.
These and other objects, advantages and aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following description. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which there is shown a preferred embodiment of the invention. Such embodiment does not necessarily represent the full scope of the invention and reference is made therefor, to the claims herein for interpreting the scope of the invention.
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Amrozowicz Paul D.
Cheng Joe H.
Moss Allen J.
Quarles & Bradley Streick Lang, LLP
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