No, we do not want our televisions watching us!

The U.S. Patent Office has delivered a "non-final" rejection of a Verizon patent application for a controversial technology that would serve targeted ads to TV viewers based on what they're doing or saying in front of their sets.

In what is known formally as an Office action, the Patent Office sent the application back to Verizon, which must now decide whether it wants to pursue the technology further or abandon the patent claims.

The patent has been the subject of intense media scrutiny since FierceCable uncovered it last week. Verizon somewhat laboriously titled the patent application "Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated with an Ambient Action of a Use."

The application says the technology would be capable of triggering different advertisements based on whether viewers are eating, playing, cuddling, laughing, singing, fighting or gesturing in front of their sets. Specifically, the patent covers technology that can serve ads "...targeted to the user based on what the user is doing, who the user is, the user's surroundings, and/or any other suitable information associated with the user."