CONTEST
Competed
$3,000
This contest is closed.
Problem
Patexia is looking for descriptions of a server or servers that collect information about website visitors by identifying each visitor and receiving information from multiple 3rd-party servers based on the visitor’s identity in order to build a more complete profile of the visitor to assist with the delivery of targeted advertisements.
Submitted documents describing this system must be:
- filed or published before 06/14/2000
- 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 system of web servers (or a server) that tracks website visitors and continuously builds a profile for each visitor to assist with the delivery of targeted advertisements
- a network of unaffiliated 3rd-party servers that store information about website visitors
Using these participants, the system of servers:
- redirects a portion of the web page each visitor accesses to identify the visitor
- requests from and receives any stored profile information (even incomplete information) that the network of unaffiliated 3rd-party server has about the identified visitor
- mergers any and all received information in order to create a database of profile information for every web visitor it identifies
This contest is for a prior art search for US Patent 8,244,582, with a focus on claims 1, 3, and 10, in the context of building a database of visitor profiles based on the information collected by other marketing agencies in order to deliver its own targeted web advertisements.
Questions
| # | Question | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is the reference either a US patent filed, a foreign patent published, or a non-patent document published before June 14th, 2000? | T/F |
| 2 | Is the reference generally about a server or servers collecting information about website visitors by sourcing information from multiple 3rd-party servers in order to deliver targeted advertisements? | T/F |
| 3 | Does the reference show that when a visitor arrives at a website, a part of the page is redirected to a different URL which allows the server to identify the visitor? | 20 |
| 4 | (3a) Does the reference further show that this visitor identification is aided by the server reading a cookie previously placed on the visitor’s computer? | 10 |
| 5 | Does the reference show that after the visitor is identified, the server receives profile information about the visitor from at least one unaffiliated 3rd-party server? | 30 |
| 6 | Does the reference show that the server merges the received profile information with its own stored information about the visitor? | 20 |
| 7 | (6a) Does the reference further show that this profile information is inherently tied to the visitor’s device, such that the same visitor using a desktop and a tablet would create two profiles? | 10 |
| 8 | (6b) Does the reference further show that new profiles are created for new visitors the server has not identified before? | 5 |
| 9 | Does the reference show the visitor profiles are used to deliver targeted advertisements to visitors? | 5 |
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.
