Submission 1,877

U.S. Patent 8246454B2

Updated Jul 01, 2025 at 05:02PM EDT by Phillip Hamilton.

Added Jul 01, 2025 at 04:55PM EDT by Phillip Hamilton.

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About

U.S. Patent 8246454B2 is a patent owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC for an interactive commercial advertising system that lets people yell the brand name of the commercial they're watching to skip it, also allowing consumers to interact with ads in other ways. The patent, invented by Gary M. Zalewski, was first made on October 10th, 2009 and garnered some attention online over the following years. It started going viral on sites like Reddit and X / Twitter as early as 2022, inspiring reactions and memes about the absurdity of the patent.

Origin

On October 10th, 2009, Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC filed United States patent 8246454B2, or US8246454B2, which is available to view on Google Patents.^[1] The patent, invented by Gary M. Zalewski, is called "System for converting television commercials into interactive networked video games" and outlines a system of advertising that lets viewers yell the name of a brand shown in a commercial to skip the commercial. It also outlines other ways viewers could interact with ads, with examples like slipping a graphic of a pickle into a burger or clicking a "buy" button displayed in the corner of the screen to instantly order a pizza to your house. The patent was discussed in some detail by Fortune^[2] on April 30th, 2013.

A diagram from a Sony patent that lets you interact with your TV to skip commercials. In this example, the man yells "McDonald's" to skip a McDonald's ad.

Spread

On February 4th, 2022, a now-deleted Redditor posted about the patent to the /r/assholedesign^[3] subreddit, titling the post, "Sony was granted a patent to make a tv that will only stop showing a commercial once you stand up and say the brand name out loud," garnering over 51,000 upvotes in three years.

On January 9th, 2023, X^[4] user @u_m_a_m_i made a similar post, garnering over 94,000 likes and 10,000 reposts in two years. On January 16th, Snopes^[5] posted an article confirming the authenticity of the claim made by the X post.

On November 20th, 2024, u/TheWormKeeper posted a Ted Kaczynski meme about the patent to the /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke^[6] subreddit, garnering over 10,000 upvotes in eight months. On November 21st, u/Theghost129 posted a meme to the /r/memes^[7] subreddit about the patent, garnering over 54,000 upvotes in eight months.

On December 3rd, the meme was reposted by X^[8] user @OrwellNGoode, garnering over 204,000 likes in seven months. On June 30th, 2025, Redditor u/AccusedToppat posted the meme to the /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke^[9] subreddit again, garnering over 14,000 upvotes in a day.