CONTEST
Competed
$3,000
This contest is closed.
Problem
Patexia is looking for descriptions of an ad server that can track a web visitor as they browse across different websites in order to serve advertisements targeted to previously seen visitors, which is cheaper for advertisers as opposed to advertisements which require knowing the visitor’s identity profile.
Submitted documents describing this system must be:
- filed or published before 06/16/2006
- not on the known references list
The entire submission must describe a system with the following participants:
- a website visitor who browses the Internet
- a first website
- a second website that is completely different from the first website
- an ad server that controls ad space on the second website
Using these participants:
- when a visitor arrives at the first website, the ad server is notified and begins tracking the visitor
- when the visitor arrives at the second website, the ad server recognizes that it saw the visitor earlier and delivers an advertisement on the second website to the visitor
- in cases where the advertisement would be cheaper than displaying an advertisement based on the visitor’s identity profile since the ad server only needs to know the user was seen previously on another website
This contest is for a prior art search for US Patent 8,671,139, with a focus on claims 1, 2, 8, and 13, in the context of delivering advertisements to visitors as they browse different websites.
Contest icon by Vecteezy under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Questions
| # | Question | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is the reference either a US patent filed, a foreign patent published, or a non-patent document published before June 16th, 2006? | T/F |
| 2 | Is the reference generally about an ad server that can track a web visitor as they browse across different websites in order to serve advertisements targeted to previously seen visitors which is cheaper for advertisers? | T/F |
| 3 | Does the reference show that when a visitor arrives on a website (1), the website’s host server notifies the ad server which begins tracking the visitor? | 5 |
| 4 | Does the reference show that when the same visitor later arrives on a second website (2) with advertisements controlled by the same ad server, the ad server recognizes the visitor from the first website (1) and displays an advertisement targeted to the visitor? | 30 |
| 5 | (4a) Does the reference further show that this recognition is based on a profile match (even a partial match) of the visitor’s identity compared with the identity stored on the ad server when the visitor first arrived on the first website (1)? | 15 |
| 6 | (4b) Does the reference further show that the ad server only has temporary control of the ad space on the second website (2)? | 10 |
| 7 | (4c) Does the reference further show that the ad server only displays a targeted ad when it is cheaper to display an advertisement dependent on recognizing that the user has visited another website (1) as opposed to an advertisement that is targeted to the user’s identified profile? | 40 |
Additional Notes
This is a Prior Art Search contest aimed at determining if a patent idea was known and publicly available before a patent was filed.
+5 bonus points will be awarded for non-patent literature and for foreign language references.
This contest will close on Sunday, June 7th, 2015 at 11:59 PM PST.
Please review the Contest Rules. For more information on how to submit to this Contest type, please read the Intro to Prior Art Search page.
