Paid search engine bid management
Paid Search Engine Tools, LLCPatent 7,043,450 (the '450 patent) has been asserted by Paid Search Engine Tools, LLC against Microsoft Corp. and Google, Inc. in federal district court alleging patent infringement. The '450 patent pertains to a system for monitoring keyword bids across one or more search engines so that that marketers can make adjustments to their pay-per-click bids. This patent may impact any party that is in the business of selling keywords for advertising and marketing. The challenge is to determine whether the patent is valid.
Last updated: 3 months ago
Summary / Description
| Summary / Description | According to the invention, network code (for example, in HTML or XML) corresponding to a displayable portion of network content (such as an Internet Web site) is retrieved into a users' local processing system. A list of identifiers is then stored, by specific user choice, in the local system. Each identifier corresponds to a participating provider. In the user's local processing system, the network code is then parsed and any occurrence in the network code of any identifier stored in the list of identifiers is detected. For each detected identifier, a marker code is then inserted into the network code, the marker code indicating to the user the presence in the network code of each detected identifier. Both the network code and each inserted marker code are then displayed, whereby the presence in the network code of each detected identifier is made visible to the user. The identifiers include network address links and text strings. The identifiers are preferably downloaded into and stored in the user's local processing system from each participating provider via a public network. When a user is viewing network content, the invention can therefore make the user aware, for example, that a particular link or phrase on the page is associated with a participating provider, who may, for example, offer benefits such as price discounts to the user. |
Basic Information
| Type of Prior Art | Issued Patents - US |
| Country | United States of America |
| Patent/Application # | 6392668 |
| Kind Code | United States (US) - United STATES Patent - A |
| Patentee Name | Kendara, Inc. |
| Relevant Pages, Columns, or Lines | (1) col. 1, ln 19 - col. 2, ln |
| URL | http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/... |
| Publication Date | November 12, 1999 |
| Additional Information | Date listed is filing date |
Notes / To Do
| Notes | |
Excerpt
(1) col. 1, ln 19 - col. 2, ln 46 - Unfortunately, along with the rapid growth in the crop of Internet "wheat," there is a corresponding rapid growth in the amount of Internet "chaff." There are at present several different ways of enabling a user to separate these two types of information. The most common way is by using a search engine. As is well-known, the user of a search engine enters one or more keywords, which the engine then matches against the millions of potential available Web sites. Links to relevant Web sites are then presented to the user by means of some conventional browser.
The problem with this solution lies in the word "relevant." What the search engine considers to be relevant is often not at all what the user might consider to be relevant. This is a result not only of the inherent limitations of any search engine, but also of the increasing commercialization of the Web itself. In some cases, for example, a retrieved site may be listed very highly only because the site provider paid the search engine company to put it there. In many other cases, the results of a keyword search may include a large number of advertisements that appear either as banners or as actual sites and whose inclusion is triggered by a particular keyword. To the extent that links to various sites are presented to the user, they are thus chosen based on criteria set either by the provider or by entities associated with the provider. In other words, links to Web sites are differentiated by the provider.
There are also some programs available that allow a user to filter information retrieved from the network, for example, to prevent children from downloading and viewing pornography. Such programs give the user some ability to filter out undesirable information, but they still do nothing to increase the amount of relevant information that is presented to the user. This is in part because these programs also differentiate based on particular pre-defined keywords that are provided to the user's computer. . .
Relevance
Claims
Managing an offeror's offer for a keyword
A method of managing an offeror's offer for a keyword made to a search engine, said offer identifying an amount said offeror will pay upon a searcher's use of an offeror-supplied reference located upon the keyword within said search engine, comprising receiving an authorization from said offeror, after receipt of said authorization, monitoring keyword offers at one or more Internet search engines to identify a change in said offeror's offer of interest to said offeror, and implementing said change in said offeror's offer on behalf of said offeror based upon the previously received authorization without further intervention of said offeror.
Relevance
Reference 1 above.
Reference 1 above.
Claim Chart
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