Producers, distributors, and advertisers of the video content may set viewing goals and award a viewer who has reached the goals," the application notes. Those awards could include anything from digital gifts, like a score or some flair for your avatar, or promotional rewards from third-parties, like coupons or products.

Microsoft's examples include achievements or awards that could be offered for watching an entire television series from start to finish, for watching enough commercials during a program, or for "an action performable by the viewer." How Microsoft thinks it can achieve the last bit is the most interesting, because it would require monitoring TV watchers as they sit on the couch — something the company is poised to possibly implement with the Xbox One, which will ship with a Kinect camera.

We already know that the Kinect can be configured to monitor motion, depth, and audio data in its range — indeed, the peripheral will even listen to you while it's turned off — so harnessing its capabilities to detect how you watch TV isn't far-fetched. (As Microsoft demonstrated to us this month, the new Kinect will even be able to know when you're looking at or away from the screen.) The patent application states that the system "may be configured to track the viewing behaviors of one or more viewers," and "may then compile one or more user-specific reports of the viewing behaviors."