Techniques for automatic registration of appliances

1. A system comprising:

and

a server, communicatively coupled to plural appliances via a network and to complete an appliance registration database pertaining to the plural appliances, the server configured to access the registration database, the registration database including a record for each of the plural appliances wherein each record includes information pertaining to a respective appliance, the server being configured to query each of the plural appliances, to receive an identifier and a network address from each of the plural appliances in response to the query, the server being configured, based on responses from the plural appliances to the query, to determine a geographical location of each of the plural appliances, and to store the determined geographical location and received network address of each of the plural appliances in the record in the registration database corresponding to each respective appliance by matching, the identifier received from each respective appliance to the information in the respective record of the respective appliance; and

the server being configured, subsequent to adding the geographical location information to the registration database, to send over the network, based on the geographical location information in the registration database, geographic-based registration information to appliances within a geographic region to which the geographic-based registration information applies.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the registration information sent to the plural appliances pertains to a location-related problem with the plural appliances, appliances to which the registration information is sent being identified using the geographical locations in the respective records.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the unique identifier comprises a key selection vector public key (Bksv).

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of appliances comprises a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) compliant television (TV).

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the location comprises a zip code where the appliance is located.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the geographic-based registration information indicates a recall of the appliances.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the recall is a recall based on incompatibility of appliances with a signal provider in a geographic region.

8. A method of registering an appliance comprising:

detecting that a given appliance is connected to a network;

determining, automatically by a server without input from the consumer of the given appliance, a location of the given appliance;

receiving, automatically by the server, a unique identifier of the given appliance from the given appliance connected to the network and a network address of the given appliance;

querying, automatically by the server, a data structure for a recording containing a match for the received unique identifier;

adding, automatically by the server, the location of the given appliance and the network address of the given appliance to the record that includes a match for the received unique identifier; and

subsequent to adding the location to the record, sending over the network, based on the locations in the record, geographic-based registration information to appliances within a geographic region to which the geographic-based registration information applies, the geographic-based registration information pertaining to a location-related problem with the appliances, appliances to which the registration information is sent being identified using the locations in the respective records.

9. The method according to claim 8 , further comprising requesting the unique identifier from the given appliance.

10. The method according to claim 8 , wherein the location comprises a parameter selected from a group consisting of a country, a state, a province, a postal code, a zip code and a telephone area code.

11. The method according to claim 8 , wherein the unique identifier is selected from a group consisting of a Bksv key, an Aksv key and a media access control (MAC) address.

12. The method according to claim 8 , wherein the given appliance comprises a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) or a digital visual interface (DVI) compliant device.

13. The method according to claim 8 , further comprising: querying the data structure to determine each applicable appliance in a given location and a network address of each

applicable appliance; and

sending location dependent information about a functional operation of the applicable appliance to each applicable appliance determined to be in the given location using the determined network address of each applicable appliance.