A recent patent application shows that Microsoft (News - Alert) is taking on interactive television, likely via the recently launched Xbox One gaming console. The idea is to track what viewers are watching, allowing them to rack up points for watching certain shows or genres in a sort of loyalty points system. Then, they’ll be rewarded for meeting certain goals and thresholds, whether it is with virtual goods or coupons for physical rewards.

The application, appropriately dubbed Awards and Achievements Across TV Ecosystem, was submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office earlier this month.

“Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content,” the application reads.

“To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content,” Microsoft explained. “Producers, distributors, and advertisers of the video content may set viewing goals and award a viewer who has reached the goals. By providing content viewing goals and awarding the viewer for reaching the goals, the present disclosure provides for an interactive television viewing experience.”

Goals could include watching an entire series from beginning to end, the application noted, or "performing a specific action while watching the linear video content,” suggesting a place for social TV integration or other second-screen apps.

There is, of course, an advertising and revenue component to this. It added, “Additionally, by tying the awards and achievements to particular items of video or advertising content, viewers may be encouraged to increase their viewership of the content, thus increasing advertising opportunities.” For instance, if a viewer watched a certain number of commercials for a specific product, he or she would win a discount on that product.

While exactly where this would be implemented is not mentioned in the application, the description points to this being used within a streaming or video-on-demand environment. And because of the absent relationships with set-top box (STB) makers, the hardware implementation would likely be powered via the Xbox One and Kinect systems.