Rockstar Consortium US LP et al v. Google Inc

Filing 220

MOTION to Amend/Correct Invalidity Contentions by Google Inc. (Attachments: # 1 Affidavit of Lance Yang, # 2 Exhibit 1, # 3 Exhibit 2, # 4 Exhibit 3, # 5 Exhibit 4, # 6 Exhibit 5, # 7 Exhibit 6, # 8 Exhibit 7, # 9 Exhibit 8, # 10 Exhibit 9, # 11 Exhibit 10a, # 12 Exhibit 10b, # 13 Exhibit 11)(Perlson, David) (Additional attachment(s) added on 10/27/2014: # 14 Text of Proposed Order) (ch, ).

EXHIBIT 10a

FIRST AMENDED
EXHIBIT B

FIRST AMENDED EXHIBIT B
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table B1: Search References ......................................................................................................... 2
Table B2: Searching another Database for Advertisements ........................................................ 69
Table B3: Providing Search Results and Ads Together............................................................. 122
Table B4: User Preference Input and User Profile Data ............................................................ 174
Table B5: Fuzzy Logic............................................................................................................... 284
Table B6: Fee Records ............................................................................................................... 340
Table B7: Databases, Clients, Servers ....................................................................................... 370

i

FIRST AMENDED EXHIBIT B
Where obviousness is asserted, an explanation of why the prior art renders the asserted
claim obvious, including examples of combinations of prior art showing obviousness, is set forth
in claim charts A-1 to A-39, which identify specific examples of where each limitation of the
asserted claims is found in the prior art references, or herein. The cited portions are only
examples, and Google reserves the right to rely on un-cited portions of the prior art references.
Because discovery is ongoing and Google has not yet completed their investigation,
discovery, or analysis of the issues raised by Rockstar’s claims, Google reserves it right to
supplement and amend its explanation of why the prior art renders the asserted claims obvious,
including an identification of any combinations of prior art showing obviousness, as they receive
additional information either through their own investigations or from Rockstar or third parties.
In particular, Google’s investigation and analysis is significantly impeded by the insufficiency
and incompleteness of Rockstar’s infringement contentions.

1

Table B1: Search References
To the extent the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 does not disclose the
limitations identified in each chart citing Table B1, one of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to combine the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 with any one or more
of the Table B1 references listed below because: it would have yielded predictable results; using
the techniques of the Table B1 references would have improved the primary or obviousness
references in the same way; and applying the techniques of the Table B1 references to improve
primary or obviousness references would have yielded predictable results.
Reference
U.S. Patent No.
6,119,101
(“PECKOVER”)

Disclosure
See, e.g., PECKOVER, 11:20-26:
Consumers can launch ongoing searches for products, and the
searches can continue even when the consumer is not online.
Consumers use search engines that have data that is more upto-date.
Consumers access search engines that are easier to use,
especially for non-technical users.
PECKOVER, 12:7-8:
The system provides results faster than mobile or wandering
agents.
PECKOVER, 12:13-21:
Referring to the fundamental problems of the flow of market
information in electronic commerce, the fundamental objects
of the system for consumers are:
to assist consumers in gathering market information quickly
and easily;
to protect consumer identity and private information while
gathering market information; and to assist consumers in
performing ongoing searches.
PECKOVER, 14:45-49:
Consumers use Decision Agents to gather the information that
helps consumers make purchasing and usage decisions.
Decision Agents can search for ads meeting various criteria,
and order the matching ads according to the consumer’s fs.
PECKOVER, 15:22-36:
Referring to the left side of the figure, actions of Consumer 20
generate market data. Consumer 20 controls a Consumer
Personal Agent 12 that represents the Consumer to the system.
The Consumer Personal Agent is capable of creating a
2

Reference

Disclosure
Decision Agent 14 to carry out a search, within a Market 18,
for products that satisfy certain constraints and preferences.
For example, a Consumer might query for the local retailers
that carry a certain brand of sports shoes. Decision Agent 14
gathers data without knowing, and therefore without revealing,
the identity of the Consumer 20. Both Decision Agent 14 and
Market 18 store data about the search. Decision Agent 14
returns a set of product recommendations, which Consumer
Personal Agent 12 further filters and orders according to
Consumer preferences before presenting to Consumer 20.
PECKOVER, 19:65-20:5:
Continuing to refer to FIG. 4B, a Decision Composer 74 assists
the user in composing queries to be executed by Decision
Agents. Decision Composer 74 retrieves a Product Template
174 (described later in conjunction with FIG. 9B) for a
particular product from a Market 18 in which the user wishes
to search, present instructions to the user for completing
Product Template 174 to describe the object of the search, and
produces the appropriate query.
PECKOVER, 21:15-24
Referring to FIG. 6, a Decision Agent 14 comprises the
functional components of:
a Unique ID 98,
a Personal Agent Reference 100,
a Market Reference 102,
an Expiry function 104,
a Query 106,
a Response Manager 108,
and a Log function 110.
PECKOVER, 21:57-61:
A Query 106 describes the product or product category for
which to search. Query 106 includes data from Product
Template 174 completed by the consumer and relevant data
from the consumer’s preferences, as assembled by Decision
Agent Factory 76 of the consumer’s Personal Agent 12.
PECKOVER, 21:63-64:
A Response Manager 108 receives search results and returns
them to the consumer’s Personal Agent 12.
PECKOVER, 24:3-6:
An Immediate Agents function 156 keeps track of Decision
Agents 14 that are performing an immediate search. An
immediate search is a search that is to be performed and results
returned as soon as practical.
PECKOVER, 24:23-24:
Results from an extended search may be returned periodically
3

Reference

Disclosure
during the time that the search remains active.
PECKOVER, Fig. 1:

PECKOVER, Fig. 8C:

PECKOVER, Fig. 11:

4

Reference

Disclosure

PECKOVER, Fig. 40:

5

Reference

Disclosure
PECKOVER, Fig. 41:

Dow Jones Services
References

See, e.g. Dow Jones unveils new, unique knowledge indexing system
(April 17, 1997) (“Dow Jones Interactive Publishing today announced
it has developed and implemented a sophisticated automated
knowledge indexing system that will allow Dow Jones
News/Retrieval(R) subscribers to get highly targeted results from one
search in the services Publications Library, a compilation of more than
3,600 authoritative business sources.”); Personal Library Software
Announces Release Of Dow Jones News/Retrieval Text Library (June
12, 1995) (“Personal Library Software today announced that Dow
Jones News/Retrieval(R) is the latest major online publisher to release
a new service using the PLS search engine.”)
DEDRICK PATENT, 11:22-34:
In one embodiment, the software tools also provide an
interactivity builder to allow the end user to interact with the
electronic information. For example, the electronic information
may be a content database that is analogous to the “yellow
pages” of a phone book. The yellow page content database
may contain a plurality of advertisements that can be viewed
by the end user. The software tools may allow the publisher to
build an object that allows the end user to search the contents
of the content database. The software tools may also allow the
publisher/advertiser to combine different types of information.
For example, the publisher can combine video, audio, graphics,
animation and text all within the same unit of electronic
information provided to the end user.
REESE, 1:22-30:
Search engine servers have been developed to allow a user to
transmit a request from a client to retrieve data. Search engines

U.S. Patent No.
5,710,884 (“DEDRICK
PATENT”)

U.S. Patent No.
6,374,237 (“REESE”)

6

Reference

Another Search
Engine? Hotwired
Introduces Hotbot,
Powered By Inktomi,
PR Newswire, May 20,
1996 (“ANOTHER
SEARCH ENGINE”)

Disclosure
rely on a user formulated query to retrieve data. In this case, a
client transmits a request to a search engine server to search
content sites (e.g., other servers) on the Internet for
information based on user-selected “keywords.” The search
engine searches the web and retrieves data that matches the
keywords, then transmits the matching data to the client.
REESE, 7:47-52:
Next, in step 930, the matching server receives a search request
that includes a user profile from a client. In step 940, the
matching server compares the data in the aggregate database to
the user profile supplied by the client. The matching server
then delivers the matching data to the client in step 950.
See, e.g., ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotWired Ventures, a
premier Internet media company, today introduced HotBot
(www.hotbot.com), a unique search engine that indexes and searches
every word on the World Wide Web. Powered by Inktomi's advanced
parallel-processing engine, HotBot will change the way people search
for and retrieve information on the Internet.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “’The rules of the search engine game
have changed. Internet users thought they’d get what they needed from
traditional search engines, but they found the result to be thin on
content, rigid in context, and often totally irrelevant,’ said Andrew
Anker, president and CEO of HotWired Ventures. ‘Our quest to find a
better search engine led us to Inktomi. By combining the best
technology, the most relevant searches, and an innovative interface,
we created HotBot -- a bigger, better, smarter way to search the
Web.’”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “Most search engines aren’t keeping
up with the tremendous growth of the Web. HotBot’s underlying
Inktomi engine indexes more than 50 million full-text Web documents
plus Usenet and mailing-list archives, and its scalable architecture can
match the growth of the Web.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot includes a number of unique
features. Users can get the most current information quickly,
efficiently view and use that information, and interact with the search
engine in a personal manner. Daily Updates: The HotBot spider crawls
the Web every day, offering users the most current information.
Reliable and Fast: HotBot's fault-tolerant engine reliably delivers
query results in seconds, without frequent downtime. Convenient
Previews: HotBot allows users to preview documents without leaving
the search page, reducing search time. Personal Searching: The
HotBot interface allows users to personalize their search engine to fit
their own surfing style.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot identifies, customizes, and
ranks millions of Web documents using an algorithm developed by a
7

Reference

The ‘Hottest’ Search
Engine,” Business
Communications Co.,
Vol. 3, No. 3, June
1996

U.S. Patent No.
7,072,849 (“FILEPP”)

Disclosure
team of the world's leading experts in information retrieval. HotBot
recognizes that users desire varying levels of information detail, so it
allows users to control the amount and type of information searched.
The computing power available to HotBot enables the user to define a
search query using a wide range of criteria in a way that is not possible
with more traditional search engines.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: Users can perform advanced queries
within an interface that closely mirrors the progressive look and feel of
HotWired’s site, recognized worldwide as one of the most engaging,
innovative sites on the Web.
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “Reliable and Fast: HotBot’s faulttolerant engine reliably delivers query results in seconds, without
frequent downtime.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “ The computing power available to
HotBot enables the user to define a search query using a wide range of
criteria in a way that is not possible with more traditional search
engines.”
See, e.g., THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotWired Ventures
(520 3rd St., San Francisco, CA 94107) has introduced HotBot
(http://www.hotbot.com), a new search engine that indexes and
searches every word on the World Wide Web, powered by Inktomi's
advanced parallel-processing engine.”
THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotBot is touted as ‘a bigger,
better, smarter way to search the Web.’ It allows users to attain
extremely fast, high quality search results without the need to learn
complex query languages. HotBot's underlying Inktomi engine
indexes more than 50 million full-text Web documents plus Usenet
and mailing-list archives, and its scalable architecture can match the
growth of the Web. The closest competitor, Alta Vista, currently
indexes approximately 30 million Web pages and its traditional, single
machine architecture is limiting their ability to grow.”
THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “The computing power
available to HotBot enables the user to define a search query using a
wide range of criteria in a way that is not possible with more
traditional search engines. HotBot can also be reached by clicking on
the HotBot icon on HotWired (http://www.hotwired.com).”
THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “It allows users to attain
extremely fast, high quality search results without the need to learn
complex query languages.”
See, e.g., FILEPP, 8:21-24:
Messages are information provided by the user or the network
and are used in fields defined within the constructs of an
object, and are seen on the user’s RS monitor 412, or are used
for data processing at RS 400.
FILEPP, 15:52-57:
8

Reference

Disclosure
Further, DIA provides common data structure between
applications run at RS 400 units and applications that may be
run on external computer networks; e.g. Dow Jones Services,
accessed through gateway 210. As well, DIA provides support
for utility sessions between backbone applications run within
network 10.
FILEPP, 20:59-21:18:
The Jump command 296 as seen in FIG. 3a, can be selected, by
the user from command bar 290. When Jump command 296 is
selected, a window partition 275 is opened. In window 275, the
user is presented and may select from a variety of displayed
options that include among others, the Directory command, the
Index command, and the Guide command, which when
selected, have the effect noted above. Additionally, the user
can select a command termed Viewpath which will presents
the keywords that currently make up the list of keywords
associated with the user’s Path command, and from which list
the user can select a desired keyword. Still further, and with
reference FIG. 11, which shows the sequence where a user
offers a term to identify a subject of interest, the user may enter
a keyword at display field 270 within window partition 275 as
a “best guess” of the mnemonic character string that is
assigned to a partitioned application the user desires (e.g., the
user may input such english words as “news,” “pet food,”
“games,” etcetera). Where the user enters a character string it
is displayed in field 270, and then searched by RS 400 native
code (discussed below) against the sequence sets above noted
to identify the object-id for the appropriate table of keywords
(not shown) that RS 400 may request from host 205. While as
noted above, a table may include 10 to 20 keywords, in the
preferred embodiment, for the sake of speed and convenience,
a typical keyword table includes approximately 12 keywords.
FILEPP, 21:35-49:
If after selecting the Jump command, the user selects the Index
command, RS 400 will retrieve the keyword table residing at
RS 400, and will again build a page with initialized, cursorable
fields of keywords. The table fetched upon invoking the Index
command will be comprised of alphabetic keywords that occur
within the range of the keywords associated with the page
template object (PTO) from which the user invoked the Index
command. As discussed above, the user may select to navigate
to any of this range of PTOs by selecting the relevant keyword
from the display. Alternatively, the user can, thereafter, select
another range of alphabetical keywords by entering an
appropriate character string in a screen field provided or move
9

Reference

Disclosure
forward or backward in the collection by selecting the
corresponding option.
FILEPP, 21:50-64:
By selecting the Directory command, RS 400 can be caused to
fetch a table of keywords, grouped by categories, to which the
PTO of the current partitioned application (as specified by the
object set field 630 of the current PEO) belongs. Particularly,
by selecting the Directory command, RS 400, is causes to
displays a series of screens each of which contains
alphabetically arranged general subject categories from which
the user may select. Following selection of a category, a series
of keywords associated with the specified category are
displayed in further screens together with descriptive
statements about the application associated with the keywords.
Thereafter, the user can, in the manner previously discussed
with regard to the Index command, select from and navigate to
the PTOs of keywords which are related to the present page set
by subject.
FILEPP, 21:65-22:21:
The Guide command provides a navigation method related to a
hierarchical organization of applications provided on network
10, and are described by a series of sequentially presented
overlaying windows of a type known in the art, each of which
presents an increasing degree of detail for a particular subject
area, terminating in a final window that gives keywords
associated with the relevant applications. The Guide command
makes use of the keyword segment which describes the
location of the PTO in a hierarchy (referred to, in the preferred
embodiment, as the “BFD,” or Building-Floor-Department) as
well as an associated keyword character string. The BFD
describes the set of menus that are to be displayed on the
screen as the sequence of pop-up windows. The Guide
command may be invoked by requesting it from the Jump
window described above, or by selecting the Menu command
on Command Bar 290. As noted above, in the case of the
Guide command, the PTO and object-ids for the application
entry screen are directly associated with the graphic of the
keyword presented in the final pop-up window. This enables
direct access of the application entry screen without need to
access the sequence set and keyword table, and thus, reduces
response time by reducing the number of objects that must be
processed at RS 400.
FILEPP, Fig. 3a:

10

Reference

Disclosure

FILEPP, Fig. 3b:

Knoblock, Craig;
“Searching the World
Wide Web,” in IEEE

See e.g., KNOBLOCK, “SEARCHING THE WORLD WIDE WEB,” IEEE
EXPERT1, at 8 (“the Lycos search engine comprises the Lycos Catalog
of the Internet and the Pursuit retrieval program); id. (“In July 1994,
its developer added the Pursuit retrieval engine to allow user searching

1

References to Knoblock are to Knoblock, Craig; “Searching the World Wide Web,” in IEEE
Expert.

11

Reference
Expert. (“KNOBLOCK”)

World Wide Searching
for Dummies, by Brad
Hill, IDG Books
Worldwide, 1996.
(“DUMMIES”)

Disclosure
of the Lycos catalog.”); id. at 10 (“the final step is to process queries
from individual users and to return lists of links to matching
documents.”)
See e.g., DUMMIES, CHAPTER 5 (describing how Yahoo!’s search
engine operates); id., p. 78 (“You can begin searching with Yahoo!
with just three simple steps: 1. Go to the main Yahoo! Web page (see
Figure 5-1) by entering this URL in your Web browser:
http://www.Yahoo.com/ . . .2. Type a keyword, or more than one, in
the Search form. 3. Click on the Search button next to the keyword
form. . . . Within a second or two, a new page (called Search Results)
appears on your screen, displaying (Surprise!) the search results. . . .
Yahoo! deluges you with only 25 results per page.”); id., p. 85 (“The
best place to begin a keyword search in Lycos is at the Lycos
directory, called a2z (see Figure 6-1). To begin using Lycos keyword
searches right away, you need to follow a few basic steps: 1. Direct
your Web browser to the a2z page by using the URL shown
previously. 2. Type a keyword, or more than one, in the Find box.
Click on the Go Get It button.”); id. (“After you click on the Go Get It
button, Lycos searches the default database—the Lycos catalog
database. In a few seconds, you see the results page, which displays
links to all the sides that match your keywords.”); id., p. 99 (“Use
more keywords. If you’re looking for sites about cars, add the names
of the actual automobile models, manufacturers, and years. Use the
match all terms (AND) Search option. Combined with more
keywords, this option narrows the results drastically.”); id., p. 101
(“Enter the Excite search engine, offering a blissful promise: Just tell
it in plain English what you want, and it will find it for you.”); id., p.
102-103 (“The Excite home page is the starting point for conceptbased Web searches. You get there by entering this URL into your
Web browser: http://www.excite.com/. . . 1. Place your cursor in the
keyword form and click once. 2. Type either a single keyword, more
than one keyword, or a simple phrase describing what you want to
find. . . 3. Click on the Search button, which is next to the keyword
form.”); id., p. 102 (“A few seconds after you click on the Search
button, you see the Query Results page, which lists your hits (see
Figure 7-2). At this point, Excite has found Web sites that match any
one (or more) of your keywords. Excite presents the sites that match
your keywords in the order that the Excite search engine determines is
most useful.” ); id., p. 104 (“You can have Excite sort the Query
Results page in two ways: Sort by confidence: This setting is the
default. Your first search will sort the results this way, with the most
confident links (presumably the most relevant and useful) at the top.
What does confidence mean, exactly? Excite has a certain amount of
confidence in the matches it gives you, based on how many of your
keywords it matches, how many times each word is matched, and
12

Reference

WO9721183to Naqvi
(“NAQVI WO”)

Disclosure
other criteria known only to Excite. . . . Sort by site: When you choose
this option, the confidence rating scheme is scrapped in favor of listing
the matched Web sites in a directory style. Individual Web page links
are grouped under the home page to which they belong (see Figure 73). In this fashion, you can see at a glance when multiple links all
belong to a single, inclusive site.”); id., p. 106 (“Even though Excite
features its ability to understand phrase concepts and search on them,
it also accepts run-of-the-mill keywords. The default setting is to
search by concept. Change this setting by clicking on the small arrow
next to the second search option, and selecting the by keyword option.
Excite will then take a more literal approach to the words you enter.”);
id., p. 155-158 (describing how WebCrawler’s search engine
operates.); id., p. 155-156: “Above the keyword search form are two
other forms that give you some choice in how the results are
presented: . . .Summaries or titles . . . Number of hits. . .”)
See, e.g., NAQVI WO2 at Abstract - “The advertisements on the server
are not tied to any particular page containing information on the
network, but rather, are retrieved in response to a query entered by the
user (17)”
NAQVI WO, p. 2 – “That is, when a user uses certain search engines
for conducting a search, the user will be shown advertisements while
doing the searching.”
NAQVI WO, p. 4 – “The present invention provides a new process and
system for online advertising. This new process will be
referred to throughout this application as query-based
advertising ("QBA"). In the QBA process, advertisements
are primarily triggered by user queries. User queries, as
15 used herein, refer to requests from an information consumer
for one or more pages of information from a computer
network. As a result of a query, a user is exposed to
advertisements with the present invention, i.e., the query
triggers advertisements.”
NAQVI WO, p. 5 - “When the user requests a certain page or a certain
topic of information, the relevant pages are retrieved from
the computer network and shown to the user. The present invention,
upon receiving the user's request, retrieves advertisements that are
related to the user's action, dynamically mixes the advertisements with
the content of the pages according to a particular layout, and displays

2

References to “NAQVI WO” are to WO9721183 to Naqvi et al. .

13

Reference

Disclosure
the pages with focused, targeted advertisements as a part of the page.
The advertisements can be made to satisfy a set of constraints
requested by the advertiser, as well as the constraints of the publisher
of the page, as further discussed below.
The advertisement triggering mechanism of the present
invention is not random or coincidental, but rather, is
prespecified in advance. This specification will be
referred to in this application as a contract. A contract
specifies the marketing rules that link advertisements with
20 specific queries. For example, a diet soft drink
advertisement may be shown when a user asks for a page
about exercising equipment. These rules are specified by
advertisers implementing the concept of "focus" or
"relevance" of advertisements and help the advertisers to
25 target a specific audience. Owners of pages specify the
focus content of their pages through special tags within a
page. These tags are not displayed to the information
consumer; the tags are used to decide what advertisement
can be shown when the page is requested by a consumer.”
NAQVI WO, p. 15-16 – “Initially, a user requests a particular piece of
information through one of the clients 17. The user's
10 request is given to the WWW Daemon 16, which passes the
information to the gate 15. The gate 15 at this point
decides what piece of information is being requested by the
user and finds other relevant pieces of information that
can be commingled with what the user has asked. The user,
15 for example, might ask the system to see certain car
dealers, to find a phone number of a car dealer, or to get
a page of a particular magazine. The gate 15 at this point gives the
request to the matching rule engine 18 ("MRE"). The purpose of the
MRE 18 20 is to look at the content of the user's query and to find a
category within its active index SIC 19 that matches the
same type. If the user has asked for car dealers, the MRE
18 invokes its rules to determine that car dealers are part
of a class of things relating to transportation. Based on
25 the classification determined by the MRE 18, the system now
knows that the user is asking about cars or about
transportation or about whatever else that the user might
be interested in. The MRE 18 at this point then returns to the gate 15
30 the category index of the user's query. If the user had
asked about cars or about family sedans or about sports
cars, at this point the MRE 18 would have figured out that
the user's interest falls into a certain category. Based
14

Reference

Disclosure
on the user's interest category, the system then retrieves
the advertisements that are relevant to that category.
Thus, the purpose of the MRE 18 is to figure out what the
5 user requested, to place the user's request in a category
of a classification system (i.e., the active index SIC 19)
and, based on that classification, to retrieve relevant
advertisements.”
NAQVI WO, p. 21-22 – “The information brokers or content providers
shown in Fig. 1 include a home page dispatcher 25, a search engine 5
INFORMIX 26, and a generic HTML 27. For purposes of the present
invention, it is assumed that there are three broad classes of publishers
that can utilize the advertising
features of the present invention. A "publisher" can
include virtually anyone that provides content to the
10 network. For example, anyone who is a home page owner is a
publisher in the category shown as Generic HTML 27. A
second kind of publisher is the search engine publisher 26,
which includes phone company yellow page providers, such as
NYNEX. And a third kind of publisher is the so-called home
15 page dispatchers, which include traditional magazines and
newspapers, such as Business Week.
…
The second kind of publisher that the present
invention is used with is the search engine publisher 26.
Currently, there are many companies on the WWW that permit
30 users to query their database and then return a set of
answers from the database to the user. For example, a
telephone company may have a site that allows a user to
obtain a set of phone numbers and business names for a
particular type of business (i.e., a yellow page
directory) .
For purposes of the present invention, the search
5 engine publisher 26 is distinguished from the home page
dispatcher 25 in the sense that the content returned by the
search engine publisher 26 does not contain any special
tags or meta comments put in by the publisher to define the
layout of the content and the ads. In this case, the
10 layout manager 10 of the present invention computes the
optimum layout based upon the rules and layout templates,
as described above. The final result, therefore, is that
output is taken from the search engine publisher 26,
15

Reference

Disclosure
adorned with certain relevant advertisements, and then
15 shown to the users.”
NAQVI WO, p. 34 – “To start (step 80), the user enters a query. For
example, the user may enter restaurants or cars as a query.
The query has a focus, as described above. The system
determines what the focus is and, as described above, the
25 system provides the user with a list of categories that
relate to the query. For example, if the user requests
restaurants, the user might be shown a list of restaurant
types, such as Chinese, American, French, Italian, and so
forth. The query entered by the user is evaluated by a
30 query form manager (step 81) to determine the focus of the
query.”
NAQVI WO at Claims 1, 2, 4
Figures 1, 2, 7, 8B, 10, 11 (and associated text)

U.S. Patent No.
5,901,287 to Bull et al.
(“BULL”)

BULL at Col. 3 - “The user is presented with a variety of search,
display and output options. The search options include: 1) Search
using keywords or combinations; 2) Use of complex software text
search agents that have been predefined by the information
aggregation and synthesization system site operators. These agents
take advantage of the expansive subject matter expertise in
understanding which search parameters will best serve the user’s
search needs; 3) Use of search patterns and agents from this user’s
previous sessions, perhaps expanded by available specials and
promotions; 4) Natural Language Query; and 5) Some combination of
1), 2), 3) and 4). During a user session or when a user completes a
session, the user’s looking activity is analyzed for patterns,
preferences and trends and the proile annotated or updated so that
when they next use the information aggregation and synthesization
system, the nominated searches will be custom
ized to their individual desires.”
BULL at Col. 6 – “A theme or definition of a class of information (e.g.,
central California travel and tourism or new automobiles) is
identified. Data sources (Local DataStores (500 . . . N) and
Network Accessible DataStores (300 . . . N)) are screened
for relevance, quality of information and appropriateness (or
may be included de facto based on their title or description).
These are indexed using a text indexing software tool 2981
and the indices stored on the system index DataStore 220.
An initial set of Preestablished Software Text Agents are
16

Reference

Disclosure
defined. These agents are words or combinations of words
that form a word based search pattern. This initial set of
agents is relevant to the searches that might be performed
against the class of information that was indexed. (i.e.,
Agents about automobiles would be developed to search a
class of indexed information about new cars). These are
stored in the Preestablished Software Text Agent DataStore
231. The System 200 uses any multipurpose computer
central processing units with the ability to handle multiple
inputs and outputs with the necessary hard disk storage and
to run World Wide Web (WWW) or other network server
software.”
BULL at Col. 7-8 – “The user is also presented with browsing options
based on: activity from a previous session in the browsing activity
datastore 240; predeveloped software text agents and personalized
software text agents (developed in the Post Session Activity) stored in
the Personal Search Text Agent
DataStore 232; or combinations of all as well as situational
opportunities developed by the user greeting subsystem 291.
The user selects the search options to be used (or simply
enters search criteria directly). This search criteria is used to
search the index datastore 220 and a list of data sources is
presented to the user for selection. The user indicates the
information to be viewed. The user will also be presented
with options to refine his search through the altering of
search agent criteria (Search Reduction System 293).”
BULL at Col. 12 – “Certain criteria will be entered which delineates a
pattern that is requested to be monitored. When this pattern is seen (or
is in close match) in the user’s WWW activity, the insertion
mechanism is activated. If a certain web page is
requested, the present invention will display a particular
advertisement. The ad will be inserted based on the content
of the existing web page being read. An analysis of the text
stream of the user’s interactive session will be performed
online. When certain text patterns are observed (or close
matches are observed), an advertisement is inserted into the
display. The advertising may be static or connected to the adver
tiser’s computer datastore which designates specific ads or
coupons based on the pattern match and other conditions
which may be required. The software agent criteria is entered by the
merchant in the agent data store 230 which delineates a pattern that
needs to be monitored.
As an example, if the user accesses web pages for
17

Reference

Disclosure
“Holiday Inns on the West Coast”, the insertion mechanism
Would be established to automatically insert ads for “Hilton
Inns on the West Coast.””
BULL at Figs. 1 - 7 (and associated text)

HealthGate

BUSINESS WIRE at 2 - “After entering a query, HealthGate's search
engine will display to users the most relevant titles of articles.”

InfoSeek

QUINT3 at 1: Identifying InfoSeek as a search engine.
QUINT at 1: “InfoSeek Search, introduced in February 1995, offers
subscribers full-text searching of over 400,000 pages on the World
Wide Web (WWW), the last four weeks of over 10,000 Usenet
newsgroups, articles from over 100 computer publications,
and articles from the major wire services. InfoSeek also has databases
of health articles, book and movie reviews, and technical support
information.”
QUINT at 3: “Kirsch: We have several databases, one in each subject
area. We do that for reasons of usability, speed, and superior
precision/recall. Our WWW collection contains 1.5 bytes of data and
it's currently the largest collection of WWW pages on the Net. Our
Usenet collection has over 4,000,000 articles and it's also the largest
single collection of searchable information about the Internet and
computer-related topics.”
PRNEWS 4 at 1: “Major engines—including Alta Vista, Excite,
Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo! and WebCrawler—use a dataset indexed by
the spider to provide a set of related sites.”
FROOK5 at 1: “These advertisements work by delivering a sales pitch
along with the results of a key-word search on a search engine. For
example, a user searching under the subject "cars" might receive a
Web ad for Genetal Motors Corp. or Chrysler Corp., while a search for

3

References to QUINT are to Barbara Quint, “An Internet ‘virtual library’ builder: Steve Kirsch,
president, CEO, InfoSeek Corporation,” Business & Company Resource Center (July-Aug
1995).

4

References to PRNews are to PRNews, “Make Sure Search Engines Find Your Site,” May 6,
1996.
5

References to Frook are to John Evan Frook, “Web marketing push,” Communications Week
(Oct. 9, 1995)

18

Reference

Disclosure
modems might delivervan ad for online computer superstore NECX
Direct.

Open Text Index

CNET6 - “Open Text is offering to help those publishers by allowing
them premium slots in its search engine without requiring them to buy
more expensive advertising banners. Under the company's Preferred
Listing [http://www.opentext.com/omw/preferred_c.html] service, a
merchant that sells personal computers online, for example, could
ensure that its Web site appears as the top listing in searches for the
terms PC and computer.”
FAIN7 - “Paid search reconciled this dilemma by tying
the search engine’s revenue to the act of transferring
the user to an advertiser’s site. In 1996, the search
engine Open Text briefly offered preferred listings,
in which sites would pay to be inserted into the
search result set for particular keywords.”
WWW SEARCHING FOR DUMMIES8 at 109-118 – The Open Text Web
searching site is aptly named, because it treats the entire World Wide
Web like a gigantic cauldron of words. With the Open Text tools, you
can search the Web for keywords as if it were a single immense text
file. Open Text also shows that it has some smarts: It allows you to
refine your search by narrowing it to certain portions of Web sites,
such as the summaries, titles, or URLs. That feature may seem like
Nobel-quality intelligence, but it sure comes in handy when you’re
trying to find the perfect Star Trek site (which is a big concern for
most Nobel laureates).
Power and friendliness are nicely blended in Open Text. You can use
keyword operators, but you don’t have to know much about them -the system makes it all clear with drop-down lists that are built into its
Web page. All in all, Open Text has emerged as a major searching
service. Just keep reading along to find out how to use it. . . ”

“Make Sure Search
6

PR NEWS at 1: “a Web user looking for Time Warner Inc.'s home page

CNET refers to “Engine sells results, draws fire,” CNET (June 21, 1996)

7

Fain refers to Daniel C. Fain and Jan O. Pedersen, “Sponsored Search: A Brief History,”
Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (Dec./Jan. 2006
8

WWW Searching for Dummies shall refer to Brad Hill, “World Wide Web Searching for
Dummies,” IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. (1996)

19

Reference
Engines Find Your
Site,” PR News, May 6,
1996 (“PR NEWS”)

Disclosure
by entering the query term 'Time Warner' in a search engine may find
the right site buried beneath many other sites”
Id. at 1: “Time Warner could thus ensure that anyone who enters the
term ‘Time Warner’ will see its home page or ad at the top of the
search results.”
See also, e.g. PRNEWS (“Major engines—including Alta Vista, Excite,
Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo! and WebCrawler—use a dataset indexed by
the spider to provide a set of related sites.”); id., (“…users must learn
more about query techniques to define a search. Alta Vista and
WebCrawler offer their users tips on searching.”); id. (“[S]earch
engines like WebCrawler and InfoSeek use ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’ to
index the Web. These programs automatically search the Web by
indexing one page and then indexing all documents that are
hyperlinked to it.”)

“Ubiquitous
Advertising on the
WWW: Merging
Advertisement on the
Browser,” Computer
Networks and ISDN
Systems, Vol. 28, Nos.
7-11, pp. 1493-1499
(May 1996), available
at
http://www.ra.ethz.ch/C
DStore/www5/www37
0/overview.htm
(“KOHDA ’96”)

KOHDA ’96, §1: “An advertising agent is placed between the
advertisers and the users. Advertisements fetched from advertisers'
Web servers are merged with Web pages from ordinary Web servers
by the agent, and the merged pages are displayed on the users' Web
browser. Thus, the users see advertisements on any server around on
the Internet. Moreover the agent has chances to deliver appropriate
advertisements which suit each user's taste.”
Id., §2.2: “When a user clicks an anchor on a page displayed on the
browser, the browser contacts the Web server and returns a Web page
designated by the anchor. Simultaneously, the browser contacts the
advertising agent's Web server. The agent's Web server returns a Web
page of one of its advertisements. Then the browser merges those
returned Web pages, and displays a composite page on the screen.”
Id., §3.1: “At invocation, environment information is passed to each
filter program as invocation parameters. The environment information
includes at least the identity of the user and information about the
selected anchor. The contents of a Web page designated by the anchor
are input into the pipe of filters, and the output from the pipe is
displayed on the browser's window as an HTML document.”
Id., §3.2: “The filter keeps in memory the contact path (URL) to the
agent's Web server. When it is invoked, it forwards the invocation
parameters passed from the browser to the agent's Web server, and
waits for a reply.”

20

Reference
Kohda U.S. Patent No.
7,136,853 to Kohda et
al. (“KOHDA ’853”)

Disclosure
KOHDA ’853 at 4:32-42: “The information providing method according
to the present invention is used to provide information through an
information communications network, and comprises the steps of
receiving the first information from a contract user through the
information communications network; selecting a piece of advertising
information from among plural pieces of stored advertising
information according to the first information; and transmitting the
selected advertising information to the user through the information
communications network.”
Id. at 15:30-45: “In response to the [user] request, the information
retrieving server 101, which is a WWW server, retrieves its own
information and transmits the retrieved information 106 specified by
the information retrieving apparatus 100 to the information retrieving
apparatus 100 in the format of an HTML document. ... Then, after a
request to obtain the above described retrieved information, the
advertising function 104 in the information retrieving apparatus 100
requests the information server 102 specified by the information server
specifying unit 42 to retrieve the additional information specified by
the additional information specifying unit 42.”
KOHDA ’853 at 6:37-42: “When retrieved information acquisition data
is input to an input/output unit 1 in the information retrieving
apparatus 100, the retrieved information obtaining unit 3 obtains
object retrieved information from an information retrieving server
according to corresponding retrieved information acquisition data.”
KOHDA ’853 at 6:56 to 7:3: “The user inputs data for use in obtaining
requested retrieved information (for example, articles from a
newspaper relating to a specified item) through the input/output unit 1.
Then, the information retrieving apparatus 100 obtains the retrieved
information from the information retrieving server through the
retrieved information obtaining unit 3, automatically obtains
additional information such as advertising information from the
information server through the additional information obtaining unit 4,
incorporates the obtained information into the retrieved information
obtained from the information converting unit 2, and outputs the result
on a display unit.”
Id. at 9:19-42: “The retrieval condition input unit 11 is used to input
data when the user requests to retrieve data and obtains retrieved
information. ... The retrieval conditioning input unit 11 can be a text
input devices such as a keyboard, etc. In this case, the user inputs the
data to the retrieval condition input unit 11 by directly inputting the
data using a keyboard, etc.”
21

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at 6:56 to 7:3: “The user inputs data for use in obtaining requested
retrieved information (for example, articles from a newspaper relating
to a specified item) through the input/output unit 1. Then, the
information retrieving apparatus 100 obtains the retrieved information
from the information retrieving server through the retrieved
information obtaining unit 3, automatically obtains additional
information such as advertising information from the information
server through the additional information obtaining unit 4,
incorporates the obtained information into the retrieved information
obtained from the information converting unit 2, and outputs the result
on a display unit.”
Fig. 1:

Fox, et al., “Users, User
Interfaces, and Objects:
Envision, a Digital
Library,” Journal of the
American Society for
Information Science,
44(8):480-491, 1993
(“FOX 1993”)

FOX 1993, p. 484 (“The Envision user interface will run as a client
process on a user’s desktop computer, communicating with the
Envision retrieval system via network.); id., (“Our interface
specification calls for separate windows or groups of windows for
each of the major phases or types of interaction with the Envision
system. These include: Query window (with four query fields and a
query history); Search Results Windows (Graphic View, Item
Summary, Item Preview); and Browsers.”); id., p. 484-85: “The Query
Window has two categories of use: New queries are created and
searches performed from this window.”); id., p. 485 “The Query
Window offers a user three ways to create new queries: By entering
document descriptors in four new query fields for authors, title words,
words related to content, and words found in other parts of the
document as specified by a pop-up menu labeled ‘Special Query.’ By
editing earlier queries. By combining results of previously completed
searches, using set operations.”); id., p. 485 (“When creating a new
query or editing an old one, the user may make changes in addition to
or instead of simply editing the text in the four fields. Other options
22

Reference

Fox, Chen, and France,
“Integrating Search and
Retrieval with
Hypertext”, 1991.
(“FOX 1991”)

“Short History of Early
Search Engines,”
available at
www.thehistoryofseo.c
om/TheIndustry/Short_History
_of_Early_Search_Engi
nes.aspx. (SHORT
HISTORY)
Pinkerton, “Finding
What People Want:
Experiences with the
WebCrawler”, Second
International WWW
Conference, 1994.
(PINKERTON)

“Search-Engine
Advertising; Web
Marketing Push” by
John Evan Frook in
Communications Week,
October 9, 1995.
(FROOK)
“What Hath Yahoo
Wrought,” by John W.

Disclosure
include changing the matching types (explained further below) used
for each field, changing the relationship among fields, and changing
filters that restrict search results.”); id., p. 487 (“Central to the search
results display design is the concept of viewing each document (item)
as a node within the Envision database graph and representing the
document graphically as an icon. Results of a search are presented in
a Graphic View Window as a scatterplot of icons.”)
See e.g., FOX 1991, p. 333 (“In the area of library information
retrieval, the Z39.50 standard has been developed so that a user of one
library system can cause that system to have a query processed on
another system, and then indirectly receive the search results.”); id., p.
339 (“Many people are familiar with keyword-based search
approaches . . . , in which the reader searches for a particular string of
characters in a database or uses entries from a controlled vocabulary
for searching.”)
See e.g., SHORT HISTORY (identifying search engines)

PINKERTON, ABSTRACT (“The WebCrawler indexes both document
titles and document content using a vector space model. Users can
issue queries directly to the pre-computed index or to a search
program that explores new documents in real time. The database the
WebCrawler builds is available through a search page on the Web.”);
id., p. 2 (“Users . . . can run the WebCrawler client itself,
automatically searching the Web on their own”); id., p. 4 (“To find an
initial list of similar documents, the WebCrawler runs the user’s query
against its index.”); id., p. 5 (“Users enter keywords as their query, and
the titles and URLs of documents containing some or all of those
words are retrieved from the index and presented to the user as an
ordered list sorted by relevance.”)
See e.g., FROOK, p. IA11 (describing Yahoo! as a search engine.); id.
(“Yahoo Corp. unveiled an alliance with Open Text Corp. to add
search functions to its Internet directory.”)

See e.g., VERITY (identifying search engines)

23

Reference
Disclosure
Verity, Bloomberg
Businessweek, February
11, 1996 (VERITY)
Sullivan, “Where Are
They Now? Search
Engines We’ve Known
and Loved,” available
at
http://searchenginewatc
h.com/article/2064954/
Where-Are-They-NowSearch_Engines-Wev..
(SULLIVAN)

See e.g., SULLIVAN (identifying search engines)

The Internet
Advertising Report,
Mary Meeker, Morgan
Stanley, December
1996 (“MEEKER”)

MEEKER at 6-6: “Search engines, by definition, use text input by users
to conduct searches of relevant content on the Web. Since
advertisements are displayed along with the search results, these
companies allow advertisers to buy “key words,” which display the
advertiser’s banner when a user searches for the word purchased. It
follows that the word or words purchased are generally related in some
way to the advertiser’s products or services. Infoseek and Yahoo!
charge $1,000 per month per keyword, and based on a target of 20,000
impressions, this would yield a CPM of $50. For example, Figure 6-3
shows how the results of a search for the word “router” yielded a
typical list of sites but also netted an advertisement for Cabletron
Systems (a maker of switches, considered an alternative to routers). In
fact, any time this word was searched for, the same ad came up. A
search for “hub” consistently resulted in a different ad for the same
company. (Yes, we searched for “beer,” and each time we got a Miller
Genuine Draft ad).”
See e.g., DEDRICK 1994, p. 59 (“All consumers having access to the
local electronic yellow pages can search these yellow pages . . .”); id.,
p. 60: “Other included data may include key words and other variables
used by consumption agents to go out on the network and find both
electronic content and electronic advertisements that have a certain
“hit-rate” when matched against a consumer’s profile.”); id. (“Acting
upon the consumer’s personal profile data, an agent might send out
queries to electronic yellow pages service providers, either locally or
with a wider scope of interest.”)
See e.g., DEDRICK 1995, p. 44 (“All consumers having access to the
local electronic yellow pages can search these yellow pages . . .”); id.,
p. 46 (“Acting upon the consumer’s personal profile data, an agent
might send out queries to electronic yellow pages service providers,
either locally or with a wider scope of interest.”)
See e.g., GALLAGHER, p. 2 (“In this paper, we restrict our discussion to
banner advertising that appears in the course of users’ browsing and

Rick Dedrick,
Interactive Electronic
Advertising, IEEE 1994
(“DEDRICK 1994”)

Rick Dedrick, A
Consumption Model for
Targeted Electronic
Advertising, IEEE 1995
(“DEDRICK 1995”)
Katherine Gallagher
and Jeffrey Parsons, A

24

Reference
Framework for
Targeting Banner
Advertising on the
Internet, Proceedings of
the Thirtieth Annual
Hawwaii International
Conference on System
Sciences, 1997 IEEE
(“GALLAGHER”)

Disclosure
searching activities on information services, such as Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com) and Excite (http://www.yahoo.com), that
provide an entry point to Internet resources.”)

Lycos, Inc. Registration See LYCOS PROSPECUS at GOOG-WRD-00872477:
Statement No. 333-354,
dated April 3, 1996
(“LYCOS PROSPECUS”),
produced at GOOGWRD-00872476GOOG-WRD00872549

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872482:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872498:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872500:

25

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872501:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872502:

26

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872502-503:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872505:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872506:

Lycos, Inc. Form S-1
Registration Statement,
dated February 14,
1996 (“LYCOS S-1”),
produced at GOOGWRD-00872550GOOG-WRD00872923

See LYCOS S-1 at GOOG-WRD-00872554:

27

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872558:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872574:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872576:
28

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872577:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872578:

29

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872578-579:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872581:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872582:

Excite, Inc. SB-2
Registration Statement
No. 333-2328-LA,
March 11, 1996
(“Excite SB-2”)
30

Reference
produced at GOOGWRD-00872006GOOG-WRD00872094

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-0087209.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-0087209.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872010.

31

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD00872011.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872013.

32

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872017-18.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872040.

33

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872043.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872045.

Id.

34

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872046.
Excite, Inc. Prospectus,
dated April 3, 1996
(“Excite Prospectus”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00871928GOOGL-WRD00872005

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871929.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871929.

35

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871930.

Id. at GOOG-WRD00871931.

36

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871933.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871937-38.

37

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871960.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871963.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871965.

Id.

38

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871966.
InfoSeek Corporation
S-1 Registration
Statement No. 3334142, Amendment No.
1, dated May 3, 1996
(“InfoSeek S-1”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00872371GOOG-WRD00872464

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872375.

39

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872403.

Id.

Id.

40

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872406.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872408.

41

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872408-09.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872409.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872413.

42

Reference
Yahoo Prospectus
Registration Statement
No. 333-2142, dated
April 12, 1996 (“Yahoo
Prospectus”) produced
at GOOG-WRD00874251-GOOGWRD-00874328

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874252.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874255.

43

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874261-62.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874263-64.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874275.

44

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874279.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874279-80.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874281.

45

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874281-81.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874282.

46

Reference
Yahoo Form SB-2
Registration Statement
No. 333-2142, dated
March 7, 1996 (“Yahoo
Form SB-2”) produced
at GOOG-WRD00874329-GOOGWRD-00874418

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874332.

47

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874348.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874340.

48

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874342.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874353.

49

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874357.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874357-58.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874359.

50

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874359-60.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874360.
Open Text Form F-1
Registration Statement
No. 33-98858, dated
November 1, 1995
(“Open Text Form F1”) produced at
GOOG-WRD00873727-GOOGWRD-00873878

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873601.

51

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873602.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873603.

52

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873611.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873612.

53

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873613-14.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873615.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873633.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873636-37.

54

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873637.

55

Reference

Disclosure

56

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873638-40.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873641.

57

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873641-42.

58

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873642-43.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873644.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873646.

59

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873646.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873647.

60

Reference
Open Prospectus, dated
January 23, 1996
(“Open Text
Prospectus”) produced
at OT03652-3758

Disclosure

Id. at OT03653.

Id. at OT03662-63.

61

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03663.

Id. at OT03665.

62

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at OT03667.

Id. at OT03692-93.

Id. at OT03693-94.

63

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03694-95.

64

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03697.

Id. at OT03697-98.
65

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03698-99.

Id. at OT03700.
66

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03702.

Id. at OT03702-03.

67

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03703-04.

Id. at OT03705.

68

Table B2: Searching Another Database for Advertisements.
To the extent the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 does not disclose the
limitations identified in each chart citing Table B2, one of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to combine the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 with any one or more
of the Table B2 references listed below because: it would have yielded predictable results; using
the techniques of the Table B2 references would have improved the primary or obviousness
references in the same way; and applying the techniques of the Table B2 references to improve
primary or obviousness references would have yielded predictable results.
Reference
U.S. Patent No.
6,119,101
(“PECKOVER”)

Disclosure
See, e.g., PECKOVER, 11:23-24:
Consumers use search engines that have data that is more upto-date.
PECKOVER, 12:11-12:
Information used by both consumers and providers is more upto-date.
PECKOVER, 17:6-10:
Various specialized agents are described in conjunction with
other Figures. Agents and other components operating in
Agent Marketplace 28 have access to a Product Database
(Product DB or PDB) 32.
PECKOVER, 21:57-61:
A Query 106 describes the product or product category for
which to search. Query 106 includes data from Product
Template 174 completed by the consumer and relevant data
from the consumer’s preferences, as assembled by Decision
Agent Factory 76 of the consumer’s Personal Agent 12.
PECKOVER, 23:17-20:
A Product Listing function 124 maintains a list of the products
that can be advertised in this market. Each product references
detailed product data that is kept in a Product Database (PDB)
32 described in conjunction with FIG. 9A.
PECKOVER, 23:43-47:61:
An Active Ads function 146 maintains the ads that are
currently active. As each new add is accepted by Active Ads
function 146, an Active Decision Agent Manager 152 (see
below) is notified so that pending searches can be matched
against the new advertisement.
PECKOVER, 24:53-61:
69

Reference

Disclosure
A Template Dispenser function 134 retrieves the Product
Template 174 for a particular product. Product Template 174
describes the data that is available within the system about the
particular product. Personal Agents 12 or 13 use the Template
Dispenser 134 when consumers or providers are constructing
ads or product search queries. Template Dispenser 134
consults the Product Template Manager 170 in a Product
Database 32 (described in conjunction with FIG. 9A) to collect
the template data.
PECKOVER, 25:10-36:
A Remote Database Adaptor 140 provides communication and
session management services to connect to a database (a
“remote database”, not shown) belonging to a manufacturer or
a provider. Remote Database Adaptor 140 also provides
translation services to translate between the data formats used
by a remote database and the data formats used by PDB 32.
Remote Database Adaptor 140 allows a provider to submit ads
directly from the provider’s remote database into Market 18.
Remote Database Adaptor 140 also allows access “by
reference” to advertisement data that remains stored in a
remote database; that is, the data is not copied into Agent
System 10, but is accessed as needed. Market 18 includes a
Remote Database Adaptor 140 for each provider that chooses
to supply ads in this manner; alternatively, a provider uses
various functional components accessed via provider’s
Personal Agent 13 to place ads manually.
PECKOVER, 25:36-57:
Referring to FIG. 9A, a Product Database 32 (PDB) comprises
functional components:
a Database Administration function 166,
a Product Data Storage function 168,
a Product Template Manager function 170,
and, (optionally) some number of Remote Database
Adaptors 172.
PDB 32 maintains generic data about products, to be
referenced by ads placed by providers. Although PDB 32 is
illustrated here as a single database (with several internal
components) for ease of understanding, the contemplated PDB
32 will be split across several processors 38, as illustrated
previously in FIG. 3A.
Referring to FIG. 9A, a Database Administration function 166
provides conventional add, delete, update, query, and backup
access for a System Administrator user to the other
components of PDB 32.
A Product Data Storage function 168 stores data about
70

Reference

U.S. PATENT NO.
5,999,912 (“WODARZ”)

U.S. Patent No.
7,072,849 (“FILEPP”)

Disclosure
different products, for example, product name, product model
number, manufacturer’s suggested retail price for product, etc.
See, e.g., WODARZ, 3:17-37:

See, e.g., FILEPP, 1:17-32:
This invention relates generally to a distributed processing,
interactive computer network intended to provide very large
numbers of simultaneous users; e. g. millions, access to an
interactive service having large numbers; e.g., thousands, of
applications which include pre-created, interactive text/graphic
sessions; and more particularly, to a method for presenting
advertising to service users during interactive sessions, the
method featuring steps for presenting advertising concurrently
with applications, the advertising being organized as data
which is stored for presentation and replenished at the user
sites so as to minimize interference with retrieval and
presentation of application data; the method also featuring
steps for individualizing the advertising presented based on
user characterizations defined by service interaction and/or
other data such as user demographics and geographical
location.
FILEPP, 10:7-27:
Individualized queues of advertising object ids are constructed
based upon data collected on the partitioned applications that
were accessed by a user, and upon events the user generated in
response to applications. The data are collected and reported
by RS 400 to a data collection co-application in file server 205
for later transmission to business system 130. In addition to
application access and use characteristics, a variety of other
71

Reference

Another Search
Engine? Hotwired
Introduces Hotbot,
Powered By Inktomi,
PR Newswire, May 20,
1996 (“ANOTHER
SEARCH ENGINE”)

Disclosure
parameters, such as user demographics or postal ZIP code,
may be used as targeting criteria. From such data, queues of
advertising object ids are constructed that are targeted to either
individual users or to sets of users who fall into certain groups
according to such parameters. Stated otherwise, the advertising
presented is individualized to the respective users based on
characterizations of the respective users as defined by the
interaction history with the service and such other information
as user demographics and locale. As will be appreciated by
those skilled in the art, conventional marketing analysis
techniques can be employed to establish the user
characterizations based on the collected application usage data
above noted and other information.
See, e.g., ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotWired Ventures, a
premier Internet media company, today introduced HotBot
(www.hotbot.com), a unique search engine that indexes and searches
every word on the World Wide Web. Powered by Inktomi's advanced
parallel-processing engine, HotBot will change the way people search
for and retrieve information on the Internet.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “’The rules of the search engine game
have changed. Internet users thought they’d get what they needed from
traditional search engines, but they found the result to be thin on
content, rigid in context, and often totally irrelevant,’ said Andrew
Anker, president and CEO of HotWired Ventures. ‘Our quest to find a
better search engine led us to Inktomi. By combining the best
technology, the most relevant searches, and an innovative interface,
we created HotBot -- a bigger, better, smarter way to search the
Web.’”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “Most search engines aren’t keeping
up with the tremendous growth of the Web. HotBot’s underlying
Inktomi engine indexes more than 50 million full-text Web documents
plus Usenet and mailing-list archives, and its scalable architecture can
match the growth of the Web.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot includes a number of unique
features. Users can get the most current information quickly,
efficiently view and use that information, and interact with the search
engine in a personal manner. Daily Updates: The HotBot spider crawls
the Web every day, offering users the most current information.
Reliable and Fast: HotBot's fault-tolerant engine reliably delivers
query results in seconds, without frequent downtime. Convenient
Previews: HotBot allows users to preview documents without leaving
the search page, reducing search time. Personal Searching: The
72

Reference

https://web.archive.org/
web/1996110
6235936/http://
www.inktomi.com/

https://web.archive.org/
web/19961107001258/
http://www.inktomi.
com/whitepap.html

Disclosure
HotBot interface allows users to personalize their search engine to fit
their own surfing style.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot identifies, customizes, and
ranks millions of Web documents using an algorithm developed by a
team of the world's leading experts in information retrieval. HotBot
recognizes that users desire varying levels of information detail, so it
allows users to control the amount and type of information searched.
The computing power available to HotBot enables the user to define a
search query using a wide range of criteria in a way that is not possible
with more traditional search engines.”
The first commercial application of Inktomi's innovative technology is
the HotBot™ search engine service, offered in conjunction with
HotWired, Wired magazine's electronic sibling. By leveraging this
scalable technology, HotBot was the first search engine to index and
search the entire World Wide Web, and represents the only search
engine technology in existence that can expand to match the Web's
growth as it doubles and doubles again.
See, e.g., Database access. Audience1 comes with Dynamic tags that
can access a DBMS for arbitrary persistent information and customize
the HTML tracking, using either cookies or fat URLs. Unlike other
offerings, while Audience1 supports SQL, it does not require
publishers to know SQL to access the database. This allows Inktomi
servers to store and recall a user's preferences for user interface and
query results presentation. More generally, Audience1 is ideal for
allowing servers to access pre-existing databases such as products,
inventory, etc. Browser targeting. Audience1 allows publishers to
exploit leading-edge HTML features (such as Netscape's frames and
Java, and Microsoft's font changes and embedded audio tags), without
frustrating users who do not have those features. Audience1's browser
targeting can be performed at various levels of detail, ranging from
tags that are easy to use, but don't provide a lot of publishing control,
to exposing the raw browser capabilities to the publisher. For
example, advertisers on HotBot are shown as progressive JPEG if the
client browser supports it, otherwise they are shown as JPEGs or GIFs
for less-capable browsers. This allows Inktomi to make the most of
each browser, rather than resorting to a least-common denominator.
Access to high performance, scalable services. Dynamic Tags make it
possible for publishers to introduce new, high performance, scalable
services, without requiring the publisher to understand the intricacies
of computing programming. For example, access to the Inktomi search
engine is encapsulated into a single Dynamic Tag, hiding the
complexity of interfacing to a parallel program such as Inktomi. In
addition, Dynamic Tags can be multi-threaded, interleaving longlatency operations such as Inktomi queries and customized content
73

Reference

U.S. Patent Nos.
5,948,061 (“MERRIMAN
I”) and 7,844,488
(“MERRIMAN II”)

Disclosure
selection (i.e. targeted advertisements). We know of no other Webbased publishing system with this capability and ease-of-use.
Publishing support hides the complexity of creating and managing
sites of dynamic Web pages, allowing sites with large amounts of
content to control the publishing process. Unlike the CGI-based tools
that are emerging, Audience1's publishing support is fault tolerant,
high performance and scales to millions of users and millions of hits
per day. In summary, Audience1 and Dynamic Tags allow a
customizable and sophisticated user-interface to Web services such as
search engine. HotBot's interface, including saved searches,
personalization, and browser targeting, would have been nearly
impossible without the simplification provided by the Audience1
toolset.”
See, e.g., MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN
MERRIMAN II), 2:59-3:4:
The basic architecture of the network 10 comprises at least one
affiliate web site 12, an advertisement (ad) server web site 19
and one or more individual advertiser’s web sites 18. Affiliates
are one or more entities that generally for a fee contract with
the entity providing the advertisement server permit third party
advertisements to be displayed on their web sites. When a user
using a browser accesses or “visits” a web site of an affiliate,
an advertisement provided by the advertisement server 19 will
be superimposed on the display of the affiliate’s web page
displayed by the user’s browser. Examples of appropriate
affiliates include locator services, service providers, and
entities that have popular web sites such as museums, movie
studios, etc.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II), 3:523:
The basic operation of the system is as follows in the preferred
embodiment. When a user browsing on the Internet accesses
an affiliate’s web site 12, the user’s browser generates an
HTTP message 20 to get the information for the desired web
page. The affiliate’s web site in response to the message 20
transmits one or more messages back 22 containing the
information to be displayed by the user’s browser. In addition,
an advertising server process 19 will provide additional
information comprising one or more objects such as banner
advertisements to be displayed with the information provided
from the affiliate web site. Normally, the computers supporting
the browser, the affiliate web site and the advertising server
process will be at entirely different nodes on the Internet. Upon
clicking through or otherwise selecting the advertisement
object, which may be an image such as an advertisement
74

Reference

Disclosure
banner, an icon, or a video or an audio clip, the browser ends
up being connected to the advertiser’s server or web site 18 for
that advertisement object.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
3:24-63:
In FIG. 1, a user operates a web browser, such as Netscape or
Microsoft Internet Explorer, on a computer or PDA or other
Internet capable device 16 to generate through the hypertext
transfer protocol (HTTP) 14 a request 20 to any one of
preferably a plurality of affiliate web sites 12. The affiliate
web site sends one or more messages back 22 using the same
protocol. Those messages 22 preferably contain all of the
information available at the particular web site 12 for the
requested page to be displayed by the user’s browser 16 except
for one or more advertising objects such as banner
advertisements. These objects preferably do not reside on the
affiliate’s web server. Instead, the affiliate’s web server sends
back a link including an IP address for a node running an
advertiser server process 19 as well as information about the
page on which the advertisement will be displayed. The link by
way of example may be a hypertext markup language (HTML)
<img> tag, referring to, for example, an inline image such as a
banner. The user’s browser 16 then transmits a message 23
using the received IP address to access such an object
indicated by the HTML tag from the advertisement server 19.
Included in each message 23 typically to the advertising server
19 are: the user’s IP address, (ii) a cookie if the browser 16 is
cookie enabled and stores cookie information, (iii) a substring
key indicating the page in which the advertisement to be
provided from the server is to be embedded, and (iv) MIME
header information indicating the browser type and version,
the operating system of the computer on which the browser is
operating and the proxy server type. Upon receiving the
request in the message 23, the advertising server process 19
determines which advertisement or other object to provide to
user’s browser and transmits the messages 24 containing the
object such as a banner advertisement to the user’s browser 16
using the HTTP protocol. Preferably contained within the
HTTP message is a unique identifier for the advertiser’s web
page appropriate for the advertisement. That advertisement
object is then displayed on the image created by the web user’s
browser as a composite of the received affiliate’s web page
plus the object transmitted back by the advertising web server.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II), Fig.
1:
75

Reference

PRNEWS

KNOBLOCK

“Search-Engine
Advertising; Web
Marketing Push” by
John Evan Frook in
Communications Week,
October 9, 1995.
(“FROOK”)

Disclosure

MERRIMAN II (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
9:38-41:
2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting an advertisement
based upon stored information about said user node comprises
selecting an advertisement based upon a prior content request
sent from said user node to an affiliate node.
See e.g., PRNEWS at 1 (“WebCrawler, Lycos and InfoSeek offer
advertisement banner links . . .”); id. (“It is possible for a company to
buy its own name or an ad to ensure it is listed at the top of a search
results page.”).
See e.g., KNOBLOCK, “SEARCHING THE WORLD WIDE WEB,” IEEE
EXPERT, at 10 (“The Lycos service, like many other Interest search
services generates income mainly through advertising, both targeted
and generic. For targeted advertising, the service checks the user’s
query terms against a list of keywords that have been sold at a
premium to the advertisers. For example, if the user queries for ‘cars,’
an automobile advertisement can be shown.”)
See e.g., FROOK, p. IA11 (“Lycos Inc. . . . announced the launch of
search-engine ads in recent weeks.); id., p. IA11 (“These
advertisements work by delivering a sales pitch along with the results
of a key-word search on a search engine. For example, a user
searching under the subject ‘cars’ might receive a Web ad for General
Motors Corp. or Chrysler Corp., while a search for models might
deliver an ad for online computer superstore NECX Direct. . . . Yahoo
executives have confirmed to Interactive Age that advertising sales
will be made against the new search function as early as next
76

Reference

Search Engines Take a
Risky Step: Porn
Banners Yahoo!, Excite
and Lycos Test
Keyword Sales to Adult
Sites, by Kim Cleland,
adage.com, December
16, 1996. (“CLELAND”)
“Lycos signs key
advertisers for popular
Internet catalog;
Microsoft, AT&T and
NECX charter sponsors
on leading Web Index,”
Business Wire,
September 18, 1995.
(“BUSINESSWIRE”)

NAQVI WO

Disclosure
month.”); id., p. IA15 (“Tim Brady, marketing director at Mountain
View, Calif .-based Yahoo, said advertisers debuting on the Yahoo
site, at http://www.yahoo.com, next month also will be featured in
Yahoo’s search-engine . . . areas.”)
See e.g., CLELAND, p. 1 (“Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos and HotWired’s
HotBot have all recently begun to sell banners to a handful of
pornographic Web sites. Although the banners only appear when
certain profane keywords are searched, some in the industry are
questioning the practice.”)

See e.g., BUSINESSWIRE (Lycos provides keyword search advertising,
which links advertisements to Lycos’ search engine. When linked
keywords are selected in a user’s search, the company’s advertisement
will appear on the Lycos results page above the results listing. This
enables an advertiser to purchase keywords related to its business and
to have its ad appear whenever a search is conducted using that
keyword.”); (“Users may return back to that advertisers’ sites,
enabling users to access information from Lycos from an individual
advertiser’s site. Users may then return back to that advertiser’s site
via a hotlinked button – usually the advertiser’s logo appearing on the
Lycos home page. Backlinking provides the advertiser’s site with a
readily available Internet search option.”)
NAQVI WO discloses correlating the received search argument to a
particular advertisement in a second database having advertisement
related information. See, e.g.:
NAQVI WO at Abstract - “The advertisements on the server are not
tied to any particular page containing information on the network, but
rather, are retrieved in response to a query entered by the user (17) and
dynamically mixed with the content of the pages returned in response
to the query (16).”
NAQVI WO at Abstract – “The system uses contracts (21) to specify
the marketing rules (18) that link ads with specific queries, to permit
advertisers to target a specific audience, and to guarantee a certain
amount of exposure of the advertisement in prime advertising space.”
NAQVI WO, p. 2 - “That is, when a user uses certain search engines for
conducting a search, the user will be shown advertisements while
doing the searching. These advertisements are sometimes referred to
as "banner" advertisements because they simulate a banner that the
user sees as the user is traveling down a "road" on the computer
network. These advertisements are typically tied to a
77

Reference

Disclosure
particular search page that the user encounters during the
search.
The current state of the art is such that when the user uses a search
engine, a randomly selected advertisement is shown as if it is part of
the search page. For example, the user may enter a search request to
see a home page on cooking and, as a part of that page, the existing
systems might display an advertisement about cars. This is a problem,
of course, because there is no connection made between the content of
the advertisements or the message of the advertisements and what the
user is actually searching.”
NAQVI WO, p. 3 – “It is a further object of the present invention to
provide a method and system for advertising on a computer
network in which advertisements are more focused and
targeted, for example, by user queries and user profiles,
including the past history of the user's interactions with
the system.”
NAQVI WO, p. 4 – “The present invention provides a new process and
system for online advertising. This new process will be
referred to throughout this application as query-based
advertising ("QBA"). In the QBA process, advertisements
are primarily triggered by user queries. User queries, as
15 used herein, refer to requests from an information consumer
for one or more pages of information from a computer
network. As a result of a query, a user is exposed to
advertisements with the present invention, i.e., the query
triggers advertisements.”
NAQVI WO, p. 4-5 - “The advertisements on the server are not tied to
any particular page containing information on the computer network.
Rather, the advertisements are contained on the server, distinct from
the pages that may or may not later carry the advertisements. The
pages by themselves have no advertisements. Thus, the pages are
analogous to a newspaper or magazine devoid of any advertisements.
When the user requests a certain page or a certain topic of
information, the relevant pages are retrieved from
the computer network and shown to the user. The present invention,
upon receiving the user's request, retrieves advertisements that are
related to the user's action, dynamically mixes the advertisements with
the content of the pages according to a particular layout, and displays
the pages with focused, targeted advertisements as a part of the page.
The advertisements can be made to satisfy a set of constraints
requested by the advertiser, as well as the constraints of the publisher
78

Reference

Disclosure
of the page, as further discussed below.”
NAQVI WO, p. 5-6 – “The advertisement triggering mechanism of the
present invention is not random or coincidental, but rather, is
prespecified in advance. This specification will be referred to in this
application as a contract. A contract specifies the marketing rules that
link advertisements with specific queries. For example, a diet soft
drink advertisement may be shown when a user asks for a page about
exercising equipment. These rules are specified by advertisers
implementing the concept of "focus" or "relevance" of advertisements
and help the advertisers to target a specific audience. Owners of pages
specify the focus content of their pages through special tags within a
page. These tags are not displayed to the information consumer; the
tags are used to decide what advertisement can be shown when the
page is requested by a consumer. The notion of a contract, however,
goes well beyond
just marketing rules. First of all, the advertising space
on the online medium, although technically unlimited, is
severely restricted by the user's attention span. Placing advertisements
on the first page which constitutes the answer to a query gives the
advertisements much higher probability to be seen than on later pages
of the answer.”
NAQVI WO, p. 7-8 – “A consequence of QBA is that ads cannot be
placed on pages a priori because it is the query that determines what
ads are to be placed on a page. This is referred to as
dynamic advertising. The query asks for a page that has a
30 focus. Ads that are resident in the system are checked to
determine which ads can potentially be placed on the page
in question. This decision is based on matching the focus
of a page with the focus of the ad. When not all matching
ads can be placed on a page because of space limitations,
the contract enforcement feature of the present invention
ensures that the ads that are placed on the page are
5 consistent with the contracts signed by the system with the
advertiser.”
NAQVI WO, p. 9 – “In summary, the present invention provides a
system
and method for advertising on a computer network,
comprising a server containing a plurality of
advertisements, means for electronically connecting the
server to a computer network, and means for selecting and
15 retrieving an advertisement from the server in response to
a query entered on the network. The selecting means
79

Reference

Disclosure
comprises means for ensuring that a selected advertisement
is relevant to the query. A mixer means is provided for
combining a retrieved advertisement with a content page
20 returned by the computer network in response to the query.
The mixer means comprises a layout manager means for
computing an optimum layout of a combined page containing
the retrieved advertisement and the content page. The
mixer means also comprises a typography manager means for
25 detecting special tags and HTML rules in the content page
and for determining which part of the content page the
selected advertisement can be displayed on. The content
page is provided by a home page dispatcher, a search
engine, or a generic HTML content provider in response to
30 the query.”
NAQVI WO, p. 24-25 – “In using a yellow page publisher there are two
broad 20 distinctions for a query. A client may be asking for a
certain category of listings, or the client may be asking
for a particular vendor. For example, the user could ask
for car dealers in Morristown, NJ (i.e., a category of
listings), or the user could ask for Morristown BMW located
25 on South Street in Morristown, NJ (i.e., a particular
vendor) . The system determines which of the two types of
queries or searches the user has made, as illustrated by
box 32 in Fig. 2. If the query is for a certain category,
the process will go to the left hand side of the flow chart
30 of Fig. 2, and if the query is for a certain vendor, the
process will go to the right hand side of the flow chart of
Fig. 2. The left hand side of the flow chart will be
explained first.
After determining the type of query, the category
search engine 33 next determines which category best fits
5 the user's request. The user may have asked for "car," but
the category in the yellow page provider's index may in
fact say "automobile." Or, the user may have asked for
"spectacles," and the category in the yellow page provider
may be called "optician." The matching of these variations
10 of terms is performed by the category search engine 33.
Once it has been determined which category the user's
request falls into, the advertisement selection process
comes into play with the ad selector 34. The ad selector
34 determines what advertisements are best suited to be
15 mixed in with what the user has requested. The content
80

Reference

Disclosure
from the category search engine 33 and the ad(s) from the
ad selector 34 are then given to a mixer 35. The mixer 35
functions to mix the content coming from the search engine
with the ad(s) selected by the ad selector 34. The result
20 is the creation of a page that is of interest to the user.”
NAQVI WO, p. 32-33 – “Referring to Fig. 6, a process flow of the
mixer and ad selector will be described. The purpose of the mixer 35
(as previously described in reference to Fig. 2) is to take
publishers' content and advertisements and combine them
15 together so that the content and the advertisements are
mixed on the same page.
In Fig. 6, the mixer 35 is shown receiving two inputs
from the publishers: data 50 (which is the content) and EHTML
61 (which contains the special tags). The layout
20 manager 10 and parser 60 both form a part of the mixer 35.
The data 50 is input to the layout manager 10, and the
E_HTML 61 is input to the E_HTML parser 60, as previously
discussed. Both of these sub-modules then determine where
the advertisements can be placed on the publisher's page.
25 The advertisement list is then input from the ad
selector 34. The ad selector 34 receives a focus input 43,
retrieves relevant ads (step 70), and creates the
advertisement list using the prime space manager 20 (step
71). These advertisements are then placed in the parser 60
30 and the layout manager 10 (step 72), as described above.
The mixer 35 then logs all the essential billing and other
user information (step 73) for keeping track of the
system's placement of an advertiser's ad. At this point, a
refresh tag is inserted (step 74) and the system outputs an
HTML page (step 75).”
NAQVI WO, p. 39-40 - “Referring to Fig. 10, the flow of an ad
placement
process 110 according to the present invention will be
described. The purpose of ad placement is to allow
advertisers to enter their advertisements into the system.
For entering an ad, the system provides a screen that is
shown to the user asking whether the user wants to enter an
ad. If the user indicates yes by clicking on that
20 particular choice, the system enters the start 111 of the
ad placement mode. At this point the system asks the user
for the focus (step 112). The advertiser may say, for
example, that he is in the car business, the car washing
81

Reference

Disclosure
business, or that he is a physician, a lawyer or whatever
25 other category name that he wants to give. The user is
also asked for an advertisement name at step 112. This is
just a name for future reference.
The purpose of the focus in step 112, as discussed
above, is to prevent an advertisement from being shown that
30 is not relevant to the query at hand. The system of the
present invention always shows advertisements that are
relevant to what the user has asked for. Therefore, it is
of paramount importance that the system know the context of
the ad. Thus, when the advertiser places an ad, the system
establishes the focus.”
NAQVI WO at Claims 1, 2, 8
Figures 1, 2, 7, 8A, 8B, 10, 11 (and associated text)

BULL

BULL at Col. 4 - “Along with displays, including those for data entry,
searches, search results, information retrieval, the user will
be presented with advertisements and/or coupons based on
criteria entered by advertisers. This criteria may take the
form of simple logic, linking an ad/coupon with a display or
be derived from complex software text search agents that
analyze one or more of the following: The user’s looking
pattern, the user’s psychographic profile, the user’s personal
profile, the availability of the advertiser’s/couponer’s goods
or services at the instant in time that the criteria is being
exercised. The placement of the ad/coupon will be logged
along with user profile information and provided to the
advertiser/couponer in some form of report.”
BULL at Col. 4 - “III. Software Agent Advertising Insertion.
Currently, advertisements in WWW pages are tightly tied
to each page, are inserted based on keywords or on a
psychographic profile of the user. Certain criteria will be entered
which delineates a pattern that is requested to be monitored. When this
pattern is seen or is in close match) in the user’s WWW activity, the
insertion mechanism is activated. If a certain web page is requested,
the present invention will display a particular
advertisement. The ad will be inserted based on the content
of the existing web page being read. An analysis of the text
stream of the user’s interactive session will be performed
on-line. For instance, if the user accesses web pages for
Holiday Inns on the West Coast, the insertion mechanism
could be established to automatically insert ads for Hilton
82

Reference

Disclosure
Inns on the West Coast.”
BULL at Cols. 6-7 – “Initial Setup for Advertisers and Lead Generation
Advertisers: Advertisers, using a user access system 100 enter criteria
that should met for an advertisement/coupon placement. These criteria
are in the form of the complex software text search agents described
above. This includes a match
“threshold.” When this threshold is met or exceeded, an
ad/coupon will be appended to a system session. Statistical
analysis known as clustering is used to evaluate the data.
The ad/coupon may be resident on the user access system
100, an advertiser’s computer system (400 . . . N) or stored
in the Advertising DataStore 250. Additionally, the Advertiser may
include conditional criteria for ad/coupon place
ment (available inventory, in stock levels, excess capacity,
etc.). This criteria is referenced when the “threshold” is met
and if satisfactory, the ad/coupon is appended. This criteria
may be tested against data input through the user access
system 100, data on the advertising datastore 250 or data on
the advertiser’s computer system (400 . . . N). Additionally,
advertisers can input World Wide Web referential
information (hot links) to be displayed with ads/coupons or
on geographic map displays. These are stored on the adver
tising datastore 250”
BULL at Col. 8 – “Ad/Coupon Insertion:
During the session, ads/coupons are inserted alongside
displayed data (text, picture or index displays) from the ad
datastore 250, based on ad/coupon insertion agents 233 and
inserted by the session management system 292. A Record
of Insertion along With appropriate user information (may be
general or precise to the name of the user) is stored in the
advertising activity datastore 260.”
BULL at Col. 10 – “233 Ad/Coupon Insertion Agents
These are complex software text search patterns that when
matched within the text being reviewed within a given
session, cause an advertisement/coupon to be added into the
display. These can be direct insertion or conditioned from
criteria on the Advertiser’s Computer Systems (400 . . . N)
and/or the user’s profile from the user profile datastore 210”
BULL at Col. 13 - “III. Software Agent Advertising Information
Advertising is provided which benefits the user while
optimizing the advertiser’s expenditure by only presenting
83

Reference

Disclosure
ads or coupons (or ads and coupons in a rotation if multiple
ads/coupons qualify) that are pertinent to that particular user.”
BULL at Col. 11 - “250 Advertising DataStore
This is the storehouse of ads to be presented When a match
is made by the Ad/Coupon Insertion Agent 233”
BULL at Col. 12 – “296 Ad/Coupon Insertion System
This looks at the current display requested by the user
with a Ad/Coupon Insertion Agent 233, determines which
ads should be placed (or rotated) and makes the placement
(or establishes the rotation). . . 400 Advertiser’s Computer Systems
401 . . . N These are DataStores established by advertisers to store
ads/coupons to be presented or to set additional conditions
for display.”
BULL at Col. 12 – “Certain criteria will be entered which delineates a
pattern that is requested to be monitored. When this pattern is seen (or
is in close match) in the user’s WWW activity, the insertion
mechanism is activated. If a certain web page is
requested, the present invention will display a particular
advertisement. The ad will be inserted based on the content
of the existing web page being read. An analysis of the text
stream of the user’s interactive session will be performed
online. When certain text patterns are observed (or close
matches are observed), an advertisement is inserted into the
display. The advertising may be static or connected to the adver
tiser’s computer datastore which designates specific ads or
coupons based on the pattern match and other conditions
which may be required. The software agent criteria is entered by the
merchant in the agent data store 230 which delineates a pattern that
needs to be monitored.
As an example, if the user accesses web pages for
“Holiday Inns on the West Coast”, the insertion mechanism
Would be established to automatically insert ads for “Hilton
Inns on the West Coast.””
BULL at Figs. 1 - 7 (and associated text)

84

Reference
SUBMIT-IT

Disclosure
TECHCRUNCH9 at 2-3 - “But we weren’t the first to appreciate the true
value of search. Submit-It, founded a few years earlier in a dorm
room by Scott Banister, helped website owners submit their URLs to
multiple search engines and directories. Banister saw how badly his
customers wanted to secure placement on search results. In 1996, he
brilliantly conceived an idea he called “Keywords”: to sell search
listings based on pay-for-placement bidding – more or less the same as
today’s AdWords. Banister began pitching the idea to anybody who
would listen to him, including, among others, Bill Gross of IdeaLab,
and the principals of LinkExchange: Tony Hsieh, Sanjay Madan, and
me.”

HEALTHGATE

HEALTHGATE.COM10 - “Due to our aggressive pricing and volume
discount plans, the actual cost per thousand (CPM) impressions may
vary. Our Keyword Plan gives you the ability to ensure that your ad
will be displayed whenever a user enters your pre-defined keyword.”

INFOSEEK

PRNEWS at 1: “It is possible for a company to buy its own name or an
ad to ensure it is listed at the top of a search results page.”
PRNEWS at 1: “Advertisements that appear only with the results of a
specific key word search are a minimum of $1,000 for a four-week
period. WebCrawler, Lycos, and Infoseek offer advertisement banner
links, however Alta Vista’s product is still in beta-test.”
FROOK at 1: “These advertisements work by delivering a sales pitch
along with the results of a key-word search on a search engine. For
example, a user searching under the subject "cars" might receive a
Web ad for Genetal Motors Corp. or Chrysler Corp., while a search
for modems might delivervan ad for online computer superstore
NECX Direct.
lnfoSeek Corp. introduced the first search-engine ads in March,
but imponant developments in recent weeks point toward increased
use of the technique on the Web.”

OPEN TEXT INDEX

CNET - “Open Text is offering to help those publishers by allowing

9

TechCrunch shall refer to Ali Partovi, “Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search
Business Model,” posted Aug. 29, 2010

10

HEALTHGATE.COM will refer to the HealthGate.com website at the webpage currently
available at
https://web.archive.org/web/19961105192255/http:/www.healthgate.com/HealthGate/product/sp
onsorship.html

85

Reference

Disclosure
them premium slots in its search engine without requiring them to buy
more expensive advertising banners. Under the company's Preferred
Listing [http://www.opentext.com/omw/preferred_c.html] service, a
merchant that sells personal computers online, for example, could
ensure that its Web site appears as the top listing in searches for the
terms PC and computer.”
FAIN - “Paid search reconciled this dilemma by tying
the search engine’s revenue to the act of transferring
the user to an advertiser’s site. In 1996, the search
engine Open Text briefly offered preferred listings,
in which sites would pay to be inserted into the
search result set for particular keywords.”

PR NEWS

PR NEWS at 1: “The general solution to avoid getting buried by others'
words is to buy a ‘search word,’ an option introduced last year by
several search engines.
For example, it is possible for a company to buy its own name or an
ad to ensure it is listed at the top of the search results.
Time Warner could thus ensure that anyone who enters the term ‘Time
Warner’ will see its home page or ad at the top of the search results.
Charges for banner ads in search engines vary, but tend to be
expensive, according to Beth Lanahan, spokesperson for one of the
Web's more popular search engines, InfoSeek. Depending on
Impression and specific topic, advertisements that rotate through
directories range from $7,500 to $73,000 for a four-week period.
Advertisements that appear only with the results of a specific key
word search are a minimum of $1,000 for a four-week period.
WebCrawler, Lycos and Infoseek offer advertisement banner links,
however Alta Vista's product is still in beta-test.”

KOHDA ’96

KOHDA ’96, §1: “An advertising agent is placed between the
advertisers and the users. Advertisements fetched from advertisers'
Web servers are merged with Web pages from ordinary Web servers
by the agent, and the merged pages are displayed on the users' Web
browser. Thus, the users see advertisements on any server around on
the Internet. Moreover the agent has chances to deliver appropriate
advertisements which suit each user's taste.”
Id., §2.1: “First of all, the advertising agent company makes a contract
with advertiser companies. Remark that ordinary users can become
advertisers or advertising agents if they are ready to pay for it, but we
86

Reference

Disclosure
use the word, company, to make the explanation brief. The agent
company is responsible for delivering advertisements to users. The
advertisements are stored on the agent's Web server.”
Id., §2.2: “When a user clicks an anchor on a page displayed on the
browser, the browser contacts the Web server and returns a Web page
designated by the anchor. Simultaneously, the browser contacts the
advertising agent's Web server. The agent's Web server returns a Web
page of one of its advertisements. Then the browser merges those
returned Web pages, and displays a composite page on the screen.”
Id., §2.2: “Note that the agent is aware of the identity of the user and
which page the user is about to read on the browser, so the advertising
agent can tailor advertisements for individuals and their current
interests. Thus it prevents the user from having to see advertisements
that are unrelated to their current interests.”
Id., §3.2: “The filter keeps in memory the contact path (URL) to the
agent's Web server. When it is invoked, it forwards the invocation
parameters passed from the browser to the agent's Web server, and
waits for a reply. Then, the agent's Web server returns one of its
advertisements or other useful information. The filter merges the reply
from the agent's Web server before the input from the pipe, i.e., Web
pages from other Web servers.”
Fig. 2:

87

Reference

Disclosure

88

Reference

Disclosure

KOHDA ’853

KOHDA ’853 at 38:30-35: “the advertising information server provides
the advertising information automatically based upon the retrieval
condition data, wherein another predetermined tag is added to the
provided condition data to retrieve advertising information, and is
derived from the retrieval information.”

A Framework for
Targeting Banner
Advertising on the
Internet, by Katherine
Gallagher and Jeffrey
Parsons, Proceedings of
the Thirtieth Annual
Hawaii International
Conference on System
Sciences, 1997 IEEE.
(“GALLAGHER”)
For advertisers, Web
offers wide audience,
pinpoint accuracy, The
Boston Globe (May 5,
1996) (“BRAY”)

Id. at 23:60 to 24:7: “When the user is obtaining the information about
the sales conditions of the latest automobiles, the information server
100 to obtains and analyzes the retrieval information to be obtained by
the user, and recognizes that the information relates to the sales
conditions of the latest automobiles.... Then, the information server
102 selects the advertising information about, for example, sports cars
from a large volume of advertising information relating to
automobiles, and transmits the selected information to the information
retrieving apparatus 100. As a result, the advertising information in
which the user may be interested can be transmitted to the user,
thereby enhancing the advertising effect.”
See e.g., GALLAGHER, p. 1 (“In this paper, we address the challenge of
attracting a defined target audience to a Web site via banner
advertising. We propose a framework for effectively targeting banner
advertising in an electronic marketplace in a manner that benefits both
advertisers and consumers.”); id., p. 2 (“In this paper, we restrict our
discussion to banner advertising that appears in the course of users’
browsing and searching activities on information services, such as
Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) and Excite (http://www.yahoo.com),
that provide an entry point to Internet resources.”)

See e.g., BRAY, p. 1 (“DoubleClick has assembled a network of about
30 Internet sites, including the Excite search engine, the SportsLine
sports news service and the Travelocity travel-planning service. The
members sell ad space to major companies such as Microsoft, Intel
and Bank of America. But instead of displaying the ads to all comers,
DoubleClick targets them to particular viewers.”)
Poppe Tyson Partners
See e.g., POPPE TYSON, p. 1 (“DoubleClick’s network, which is
With Atlanta Software
currently live on a number of major sites as part of a beta test, is
Leader To Form
anticipated to have in excess of 200 quality Web sites by the end of
Doubleclick -- The First the year. The network will go live in early April. Currently,
Advertising Network
DoubleClick represents two leading Web sites, Netscape and Excite!.
For The Internet, PR
In addition, the DoubleClick network will offer advertisers a unique
Newswire (Feb. 6,
ability to customize and target ads to specific users and to measure
1996). (“POPPE
results.”)
TYSON”)
89

Reference

Disclosure
See e.g., BOSTON GLOBE, p. 1 (“Try this experiment: go to Yahoo
(www.yahoo.com) and enter in the search term, sex. On the results
page, you’ll see a banner ad at the top for ‘Amateur Hardcore, the
Net’s only XXX search engine.’ Yahoo has taken the liberty of
identifying you as a dirty trenchcoat type, and served up an ad aimed
at your kind.”)
“Start-Ups Plot to Make See e.g., FLYNN, p. 2 (“Yahoo!, for example, uses [NetGravity’s]
the Web Comfortable
AdServer . . . AdServer offers Yahoo! several features for targeting
for Advertisers,” The
ads to specific visitors. For starters, when a visitor to the Yahoo! site
New York Times
conducts a search by inputting a keyword, advertising related to that
CyberTimes, February
keyword appear on the screen. A visitor might, for example, conduct
13, 1996. (FLYNN)
a search for Web pages related to cars. The server would then display
an ad related to cars when it displays the results of the query.”
“NetGravity Launches
See e.g., NETGRAVITY LAUNCHES ADSERVER, p. 1 (“Yahoo!, the first
AdServer, the Premier
web site to use NetGravity’s ad management software, is now able to
Advertising
schedule, deliver and track its advertising with maximum
Management System
effectiveness and efficiency using NetGravity AdServer.”); id.
Software for World
(“AdServer provides Web sites the means to sell targeted ad displays
Wide Web Publishers,” by delivering ads on the context of a search or a news feed.”)
dated January 31, 1996.
(NETGRAVITY
LAUNCHES ADSERVER)
ABOUT NETGRAVITY
ADSERVER

NETGRAVITY

See e.g., ABOUT NETGRAVITY ADSERVER, Targeting Ads, p. 1 (“When
a browser connects to your content server, it announces its identify,
including its type and version, domain, and platform. AdServer
receives and interprets this announcement, and uses that information
to target an ad and show it only to someone matching criteria that you
specify.”); id., p. 2( “By targeting ads, you can offer your advertisers a
vastly more efficient way to reach their desired audience. instead of
showing an ad to a mass audience, you can show the ad to those few
people most likely to respond to it. AdServer is preconfigured to
support targeting based on browser type and version, domain,
platform, and time of day. In addition, you can modify the supported
values for these criteria, or introduce your own criteria on which to
target ads.”); Scheduling Ads, p. 1 (“Rotating multiple ads through a
single space allows you to: . . . provide your site visitors with
changing ad content.”); id., Working With Space Groups, p. 1 (“A
group also has a rotation period. This specifies how often the ads that
are currently running in the group will rotate through the spaces in the
group.”); id. (“Rotating multiple ads through a single space allows you
to: sell a single ad space to more than one advertiser, give a single
advertiser the ability to show a variety of ads, provide your site
visitors with changing ad content.”)
See e.g., NETGRAVITY ADSERVER HELP, Installing the Redirection
90

Reference
ADSERVER HELP

MEEKER

“Study: Search Engine
Vendors Adopt New
Strategies,” Phillips
Business Information’s
Internet Week, Aug. 5,
1996 (“PHILLIPS
BUSINESS”)
DEDRICK 1994

Disclosure
Utility (“When a visitor to your site clicks on an ad, AdServer
redirects them to the advertiser’s site.”); id., What is an Advertiser?
(“An advertiser is an entity that requests the placement of one or more
ads. The advertiser typically provides you with the ad that should
appear in an ad space, along with a URL to which a user is sent when
they click on the ad.”); id., Working with Advertisers, p. 1 (“An
advertiser is an entity that requests the placement of one or more ads.
The advertiser typically provides you with the ad that should appear in
an ad space, along with a URL to which a user is sent when they click
on the ad.”); id., Rotating Multiple Ads Through a Single Space (“To
place multiple ads into a space, create an ad family that contains those
ads. When you place the family into a space, the ads in the family
rotate through the space according to the family’s Rotation Period
setting.”)
MEEKER at 6-6: “Search engines, by definition, use text input by users
to conduct searches of relevant content on the Web. Since
advertisements are displayed along with the search results, these
companies allow advertisers to buy “key words,” which display the
advertiser’s banner when a user searches for the word purchased. It
follows that the word or words purchased are generally related in
some way to the advertiser’s products or services. Infoseek and
Yahoo! charge $1,000 per month per keyword, and based on a target
of 20,000 impressions, this would yield a CPM of $50. For example,
Figure 6-3 shows how the results of a search for the word “router”
yielded a typical list of sites but also netted an advertisement for
Cabletron Systems (a maker of switches, considered an alternative to
routers). In fact, any time this word was searched for, the same ad
came up. A search for “hub” consistently resulted in a different ad for
the same company. (Yes, we searched for “beer,” and each time we
got a Miller Genuine Draft ad).”
PHILLIPS BUSINESS at 1: “Another approach to selling ads is through
leasing key search words. Advertisers can purchase the rights to a key
word not necessarily one derived from their own products. If a search
term matches a key word, their ad will be placed. Lycos Marketing
Manager Sarah Garnsey said users who enter the key word
"Windows" on the Lycos engine, for example, will see an ad for IBM.
She added that AT&T {T} once owned the key word "telephone."
See e.g., DEDRICK 1994, p. 57 (“To enable electronic advertising to
subsidize the consumption of electronic content, these yellow pages
services are also integrated with a variety of related services.”);id., p.
58 (“Each object may have attributes consisting of hot links to other
objects, each of which may have attributes such as viewing time and
desired consumer target variables.”); id., p. 59 (““a dynamic linking
(“hot-link”) capability is a very important feature that is being
incorporated into electronic advertisements. Objects may contain
91

Reference

DEDRICK 1995

Disclosure
dynamic link attributes which are embedded by the author of the
electronic advertisement at the time of the object creation. . . . This
dynamic upgradeability is gained by enabling the dynamic link to
point across the content distribution network to objects residing on
remote servers. These objects may contain actual advertising content
or they may themselves be dynamic links, pointing to other objects.
Invocation of a dynamic link may be the result of a process-triggered
function or consumer interaction (such as a consumer clicking on a
hot-spot in a graphic or digital video clip within an electronic
advertisement. Dynamic links that exist within regular electronic
content may also point to related electronic advertising objects.”); id.,
p. 62 (“the currently suggested attribute extension list is as follows: . .
.Dynamic (e.g. hypertext) links to associated objects, residing on both
local and remote servers . . .”)
See e.g., DEDRICK 1995, p. 42 (“An electronic yellow pages might
consist of various types of advertising . . .”); id., p. 42 (“enables the
creation of ads with embedded demographic and psychographic
variables, allowing the distribution network to concentrate delivery of
ads to the most desirable consumers (or to all connected consumers at
the advertiser’s option).”); id., p. 44-45 (“A hyptertext linking (hotlink) capability is a very important feature in electronic ads. Elements
can contain hypertext link attributes embedded by the electronic ad’s
author during element creation. This hypertext link capability allows
the advertiser to change an element, and thus the ad, dynamically at
any time. This dynamic upgrade-ability is gained by enabling the
hypertext link to point across the content distribution network to
elements residing on remote servers. These elements can contain
actual advertising content, or they might themselves be hypertext links
pointing to other elements. Invocation of a hypertext link might be the
result of a process-triggered function or consumer interaction (such as
a consumer clicking on a hot spot in a graphic or digital video clip
within an electronic ad.) Hypertext links within regular electronic
content might also point to related electronic advertising elements.
For example, if an author publishes an article electronically, the author
could insert a hot spot into the article that, when selected by the
consumer, will point to a related electronic ad. By selecting the hot
spot, the consumer triggers the ad to be downloaded to the local
consumption device.”); id., p. 45 (“Other profile data might include
key words and other variables used by consumption agents for finding
both electronic content and electronic ads that have a certain ‘hit rate’
when matched against a consumer’s profile.”); id., p. 45 (“2. When a
consumption device presents one of these labeled electronic ads to a
consumer, all input and output between the consumer and the
multimedia element currently being consumed is monitored. 3. Each
of these I\O interactions is correlated to the labels associated with the
92

Reference

GALLAGHER

“NetGravity AdServer
Chosen by GNN to
Standardize
WebCrawler
Advertising
Management,” dated
June 17, 1996.
(NETGRAVITY
ADSERVER CHOSEN BY
GNN)
Lycos, Inc. Registration
Statement No. 333-354,
dated April 3, 1996
(“LYCOS PROSPECUS”),
produced at GOOG-

Disclosure
particular multi-media element being displayed on the consumption
device. 4. Relations between the elements of the electronic ad that are
not chosen for interaction by the consumer are also correlated with the
labels associated with each multimedia element. 5. The correlations
made in the previous steps are entered into the consumer’s profile,
representing data on what a consumer likes and dislikes.”); id., p. 46
(“As personal consumption profiles become more robust, consumers
might begin to see ads focusing on their favorite subjects, presented
primarily in their favorite colors, sizes and shapes. Also, their agents
might report the availability of electronic content and ads matching
their personal profiles.”)
See e.g., GALLAGHER, p. 1(“In this paper, we address the challenge of
attracting a defined target audience to a Web site via banner
advertising. We propose a framework for effectively targeting banner
advertising in an electronic marketplace in a manner that benefits both
advertisers and consumers.”); id., p. 2 (“We define a banner
advertisement as: . . . embedded within, and visually distinct from,
information provided by an online service.”); id. (“We define a banner
advertisement as . . . with hypermedia links to the sponsor’s Web
site.”); id., p. 3 (“As of August 1996, both Yahoo! and Excite offered
advertisers three options: general rotation, geographic or content
targeting, and keyword-based targeting. . . . The third option,
keyword-based targeting makes greater use of the targeting potential
of information services. A company can buy keywords so that
whenever a user enters one of those keywords during a search, s/he
will be exposed to the company’s banner advertisement. This ensures
that that the banner advertisement is presented only to people with a
demonstrated interest in the area. For instance, a marketer of golf
equipment might buy the keyword ‘golf.’ Every time a user enters
“golf” in a search, a banner advertisement for the equipment would
appear.”)
See e.g., NETGRAVITY ADSERVER CHOSEN BY GNN (“NetGravity, the
leader in Internet advertising technology, today announced GNN, a
service of America Online Inc., will take advantage of the NetGravity
AdServer technology for WebCrawler. . . . This allows GNN to . . .
dynamically deliver targeted ads. . . . Now, through NetGravity’s
relationship with I/Pro, Web sites will be able to develop and place
advertising much more effectively using management tools with
demographic profiles for targeted ad placement.”)
See LYCOS PROSPECTUS at GOOG-WRD-00872477:

93

Reference
WRD-00872476GOOG-WRD00872549

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872482:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872500:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872500-501:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872503-504:

94

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872505:

Lycos, Inc. Form S-1
Registration Statement,
dated February 14,
1996 (“LYCOS S-1”),
produced at GOOGWRD-00872550GOOG-WRD00872923

See LYCOS S-1 at GOOG-WRD-00872554:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872558:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872576:

95

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872576-577:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872579-580:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872581:

96

Reference
Excite, Inc. SB-2
Registration Statement
No. 333-2328-LA,
March 11, 1996
(“Excite SB-2”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00872006GOOG-WRD00872094

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-0087209.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-0087209.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872010.

97

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872011.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872017-18.

98

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872038.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872043.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872044.

Id.

99

Reference
Excite, Inc. Prospectus,
dated April 3, 1996
(“Excite Prospectus”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00871928GOOGL-WRD00872005

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871929.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871929.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871930.

100

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871931.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871937-38.

101

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871958.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871963.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871964.

Id.

102

Reference
InfoSeek Corporation
S-1 Registration
Statement No. 3334142, Amendment No.
1, dated May 3, 1996
(“InfoSeek S-1”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00872371GOOG-WRD00872464

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872375.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872403.

103

Reference

Disclosure

Id.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872404.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872404-05.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872405.

104

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872406.

Id.

105

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872408.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872408-09.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872409-10.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872410.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872411.

106

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872413.
Yahoo Prospectus
Registration Statement
No. 333-2142, dated
April 12, 1996 (“Yahoo
Prospectus”) produced
at GOOG-WRD00874251-GOOGWRD-00874328

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874252.

107

Reference

Disclosure

Yahoo Prospectus at GOOG-WRD-00874253.

108

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874254.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874289.

109

Reference
Yahoo Form SB-2
Registration Statement
No. 333-2142, dated
March 7, 1996 (“Yahoo
Form SB-2”) produced
at GOOG-WRD00874329-GOOGWRD-00874418

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874357.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874358.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874359.

110

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874360.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874365.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874368.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874368-69.

111

Reference
Disclosure
Open Text Form F-1
Registration Statement
No. 33-98858, dated
November 1, 1995
(“Open Text Form F1”) produced at GOOGWRD-00873727GOOG-WRD00873878

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873603.

112

Reference

Disclosure

113

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873633-35.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873639.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873640.
114

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873641.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873642-43.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873650.

115

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873675.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873676.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873677.
Open Prospectus, dated
January 23, 1996
(“Open Text
Prospectus”) produced
at OT03652-3758

Id. at OT03653.

116

Reference

Disclosure

117

Reference

Disclosure

118

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03689-91.

Id. at OT03695.

119

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03696.

Id. at OT03697.

Id. at OT03698.

Id. at OT03735.
120

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03736.

Id. at OT03737.

121

Table B3: Providing Search Results and Ads Together
To the extent the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 does not disclose the
limitations identified in each chart citing Table B3, one of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to combine the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 with any one or more
of the Table B3 references listed below because: it would have yielded predictable results; using
the techniques of the Table B3 references would have improved the primary or obviousness
references in the same way; and applying the techniques of the Table B3 references to improve
primary or obviousness references would have yielded predictable results.
Reference
U.S. Patent No.
6,119,101
(“PECKOVER”)

Disclosure
See, e.g., PECKOVER, 7:59-65:
“Banner” advertisements placed on popular Web sites
have not been particularly successful. Many online
users don’t “click-through” the banner to the more
extensive advertiser information, because the placement of such banners is not finely targeted. Some Web
activity statistics indicate that only one and one-half to
three and one-half percent of users click-through.
PECKOVER, 9:15-56:

122

Reference

U.S. Patent No.
5,105,184 (“PIRANI”)

Disclosure

PECKOVER, 28:1-10:
When a user acting as a consumer decides to search within
Agent System 10 for a product or product category, the
consumer establishes a communications session with
consumer’s Personal Agent 12 (steps 222-224). Typically the
consumer, using a personal computer, connects to consumer’s
Internet access provider, directs consumer’s Web browser
software to Agent System’s electronic address (known as a
URL), and enters a login name and password. A sample login
screen is illustrated in FIG. 39.
PIRANI, 2:26-42:
Therefore, it is an object of this new use to provide an
integration between software programs and commercial
advertisements by suggesting methods for such integration.
Furthermore, it is a specific object of this new use to provide
methods of integrating and displaying commercial
advertisements with data entry, help, menu, edit, prompt,
report, maintanence, error, action, game, management, user
access, and other information screens to be used in system,
interface, language, application, games, education, utility,
network, or other types of software.
It is also an object of this new use to provide sequence of
displays to integrateadvertisements with software. It is another
123

Reference

Disclosure
object of this new use to provide directory advertisements
integrated with software.
PIRANI, 2:45-60:
Presently, software development is far behind hardware
development. Intel, a computer microchip developer, has
already shipped 80286, 80386, and 80486 microchips; and it is
in the process of developing 80586 microchips. But, software
to utilize fully the advantage of 80286 microchip has began to
appear in the market now. Thus, software development is
almost three generations behind the hardware development.
Long term committment needed to develop software against
comparatively low amount available to buy software by the
users has created a roadblock for a small software developer.
Integration of commercial advertisements with software will
provide additional funds to software manufacturers and will
overall increase the availability of software to the user at low
cost.
PIRANI, 4:27-44:
As mentioned earlier FIG. 8 is a modified version of Sheet 2 of
17 from U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,356. In the modified version letter
“A” have been added to all numerical references belonging to
that patent to distinguish those numerical references from our
drawing numerals. A small advertisement from a fictitious
BabyCola Company has been added. The numerical reference
shown in this modified version are consistent with the
numerical references shown on next page (No. 8). FIG. 9 is the
further modification of the Sheet 2 of 17 mentioned in the
above paragraph. Here all information related to the fictitious
SATURN car is remobed. Instead the information about the
Treasury Bills has been inserted. This information is now used
by a stock broker to find information about various treasury
securities. The BabyCola advertisement is still there. The FIG.
9 shows how our new use is different from the use indicated by
Day, Jr. et al.
PIRANI, 4:62-5:14:
1. Integration of one letter to a whole screen advertisement
with various screens (data entry, menu, edit,etc.) of a software.
2. Displaying advertisement of one letter to a whole screen
page integrated with a software in which a sequence of display
screens are divided between advertisements and the software.
These advertisements are placed on the first screen, second
screen, third screen, menu screen, last screen, or any screen in
124

Reference

Disclosure
between. It could also be placed as a whole screen, half screen,
one-fourth screen, or even a tiny part of the screen.
3. A directory of advertisements to be accessed by the user.
This directory contains names of the advertise- ments and are
accessed by the user by using an input device. Usually a menu
shown in FIG. 7 is used to list all advertisers or catagories of
advertisers and the access is made via this menu. The
advertisement could be a full page, half page, one-fourth page
or any part of the screen and could be placed together or
separately.

U.S. Patent No.
5,710,884 (“DEDRICK
PATENT”)

DEDRICK PATENT, 4:24-35:
The publisher/advertiser 18 is provided with software tools to
create electronic information which includes content and
advertisements that can be transmitted over the system. The
electronic information may allow an end user to access a
content database, or the information may be all or a portion of
a content database. By way of example, the content database
may be the text and video of an electronic newspaper. The
125

Reference

U.S. Patent No.
7,072,849 (“FILEPP”)

Disclosure
content database may reside within the publisher unit or be
located at a remote location such as the metering server or a
regional server that services a plurality of metering servers.
The software tools may include a hypertext oriented mark up
language that routes distributed end users to the content
databases.
DEDRICK PATENT, 7:9-22:
The content adapter 25 customizes electronic content to the
individual end user based on the user profile data contained in
personal profile database 27. Electronic content received by
system 12 from metering server 14 may include fields which
can be customized. Which fields can be customized may be
indicated in a header block received with the electronic
content. For example, a unit of electronic information may be
received with a particular field having the default color of
green. If personal profile database 27 contains sufficient data
regarding color preferences for the individual end user, then
content adapter 25 changes the color of that particular field
from green to whatever color preference is contained in
personal profile database 27 for that individual end user.
Similarly, the default consumption format may be video, but if
personal profile database 27 indicates that the end user prefers
audio format, then content adapter 25 delivers the audio format
version ofthe electronic information to the client interface 23
rather than the video version.
See, e.g., FILEPP, Abstract:
A method for presenting advertising in an interactive service
provided on a computer network, the service featuring
applications which include pre-created, interactive text/graphic
sessions is described. The method features steps for presenting
advertising concurrently with service applications at the user
terminal configured as a reception system. In accordance with
the method, the advertising is structured in a manner
comparable to the service applications enabling the
applications to be presented at a first portion of a display
associated with the reception system and the advertising
presented at a second portion. Further, steps are provided for
storing and managing advertising at the user reception system
so that advertising can be pre-fetched from the network and
staged in anticipation of being called for presentation. This
minimizes the potential for communication line interference
between application and advertising traffic and makes the
advertising available at the reception system so as not to delay
presentation of the service applications. Yet further the method
features steps for individualizing the advertising supplied to
126

Reference

Disclosure
enhance potential user interest by providing advertising based
on a characterization of the user as defined by the users
interaction with the service, user demographics and
geographical location. Yet additionally, advertising is provided
with transactional facilities so that users can interact with it.
FILEPP, 1:17-32:
This invention relates generally to a distributed processing,
interactive computer network intended to provide very large
numbers of simultaneous users; e. g. millions, access to an
interactive service having large numbers; e.g., thousands, of
applications which include pre-created, interactive text/graphic
sessions; and more particularly, to a method for presenting
advertising to service users during interactive sessions, the
method featuring steps for presenting advertising concurrently
with applications, the advertising being organized as data
which is stored for presentation and replenished at the user
sites so as to minimize interference with retrieval and
presentation of application data; the method also featuring
steps for individualizing the advertising presented based on
user characterizations defined by service interaction and/or
other data such as user demographics and geographical
location.
FILEPP, 2:59-67:
It is a still another object of this invention to provide a method
for presenting advertising which minimizes the potential for
interference between presentation of interactive-service
applications and advertising. It is yet a further object of this
invention to provide a method for presenting advertising in an
interactive service which method enables the advertising
presented to be individualized to the user to whom it is
presented in order to increase the likelihood the advertising
will be of interest to the user.
FILEPP, 9:65-10:6:
Continuing with reference to FIG. 3a, in accordance with the
invention, advertising 280 is provided over network 10, like
page elements, also includes information for display on page
255, and may be included in any partition of a page.
Advertising 280 is presented to the user on an individualized
basis from queues of advertising object identifications (ids)
that are constructed offline by business system 130, and sent to
file server 205 where they are accessible to each RS 400.
FILEPP, 21:19-34:
If the string entered by the user matches a keyword existing on
one of the keyword tables, and is thus associated with a
specific PTO, RS 400 fetches and displays associated objects
127

Reference

U.S. PATENT NO.
5,999,912 (“WODARZ”)

Disclosure
of the partitioned applications and builds the entry page in
accordance with the page composition dictated by the target
PTO.
If the string entered by the user does not match a specific
keyword, RS 400 presents the user with the option of
displaying the table of keywords approximating the specific
keyword. The approximate keywords are presented as
initialized, cursorable selector fields of the type provided in
connection with a Index command. The user may then move
the cursor to the nearest approximation of the mnemonic he
originally selected, and trigger navigation to the PTO
associated with that keyword, navigation being as described
hereafter in connection with the RS 400 native code.
FILEPP, 22:22-44:
Activation of the Path command accesses the user’s list of preselected keywords without their display, and permits the user
to step through the list viewing the respective applications by
repeatedly invoking the Path command. As will be
appreciated, the user can set a priority for selecting keywords
and viewing their associated applications by virtue of where on
the list the user places the keywords. More specifically, if the
user has several application of particular interest; e.g., news,
weather, etc., the user can place them at the top of the list, and
quickly step through them with the Path command. Further, the
user can view and randomly access the keywords of his list
with the Viewpath operation noted above. On activation of
Viewpath, the user’s Path keywords are displayed and the user
can cursor through them in a conventional manner to select a
desired one. Further, the user can amend the list as desired by
changing the keywords on the list and/or adjusting their
relative position. This is readily accomplished by entering the
amendments to the list presented at the screen 414 with a series
of amendment options presented in a conventional fashion
with the list. As noted, the list may be personally selected by
the user in the manner described, or created as a default by
network 10.
See, e.g., WODARZ, Abstract:
Dynamic advertising scheduling, display, and tracking for the
World Wide Web. The invention includes at least one template
Web page that has conventional HTML codes defining the
format and content of the Web page. Special “ad tags” are used
to indicate the characteristics of an ad that can be displayed on
a Web page at the position of the ad tag. A request to view a
page is sent to a server-resident parser. The parser accesses the
128

Reference

Disclosure
template for the requested page, parses the conventional
HTML codes, and provides such codes to the user. In addition,
the parser “expands” each ad tag to standard HTML code that
defines the characteristics of an ad. During expansion of ad
tags, the parser determines from each ad tag the type of ad that
can be inserted at the page position of the ad tag; a bin
identifier defining Which ads can be associated With the ad
tag; a page identifier of the page associated With the ad tag;
and various optional flags and codes. The parser generates a
list of valid ads by searching through a conventional database,
selects one that fulfills all the parameters of the ad tag, and
generates HTML code linking a particular ad to the ad tag.
That HTML code is then sent to the user. The parser program
can also apply scheduling criteria to select ads from the
generated list of eligible candidates.

129

Reference

Disclosure

U.S. PATENT NO.
5,710,884 (“DEDRICK
PATENT”)
BUSINESSWIRE

See, e.g.,

Another Search
Engine? Hotwired
Introduces Hotbot,
Powered By Inktomi,
PR Newswire, May 20,
1996 (“ANOTHER
SEARCH ENGINE”)
The ‘Hottest’ Search
Engine,” Business
Communications Co.,
Vol. 3, No. 3, June
1996
U.S. Patent Nos.
5,948,061 (“MERRIMAN
I”) and 7,844,488
(“MERRIMAN II”)

See e.g., BUSINESSWIRE (Lycos provides keyword search advertising,
which links advertisements to Lycos’ search engine. When linked
keywords are selected in a user’s search, the company’s advertisement
will appear on the Lycos results page above the results listing. This
enables an advertiser to purchase keywords related to its business and
to have its ad appear whenever a search is conducted using that
keyword.”)
See, e.g., ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “For advertisers, HotBot
offers smart messaging technology similar to what is already available
on HotWired; ads can appear selectively on pages served to specific
categories of users.”

See, e.g., THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotBot will be
advertising-supported, and offered free of charge to users. For
advertisers, HotBot offers smart messaging technology similar to what
is already available on HotWired; ads can appear selectively on pages
served to specific categories of users. Ads can also appear selectively
on pages delivered in response to specified query terms.”
See, e.g., MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN
MERRIMAN II), 2:59-3:4:
The basic architecture of the network 10 comprises at least one
affiliate web site 12, an advertisement (ad) server web site 19
130

Reference

Disclosure
and one or more individual advertiser’s web sites 18. Affiliates
are one or more entities that generally for a fee contract with
the entity providing the advertisement server permit third party
advertisements to be displayed on their web sites. When a user
using a browser accesses or “visits” a web site of an affiliate,
an advertisement provided by the advertisement server 19 will
be superimposed on the display of the affiliate’s web page
displayed by the user’s browser. Examples of appropriate
affiliates include locator services, service providers, and
entities that have popular web sites such as museums, movie
studios, etc.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II), 3:523:
The basic operation of the system is as follows in the preferred
embodiment. When a user browsing on the Internet accesses
an affiliate’s web site 12, the user’s browser generates an
HTTP message 20 to get the information for the desired web
page. The affiliate’s web site in response to the message 20
transmits one or more messages back 22 containing the
information to be displayed by the user’s browser. In addition,
an advertising server process 19 will provide additional
information comprising one or more objects such as banner
advertisements to be displayed with the information provided
from the affiliate web site. Normally, the computers supporting
the browser, the affiliate web site and the advertising server
process will be at entirely different nodes on the Internet. Upon
clicking through or otherwise selecting the advertisement
object, which may be an image such as an advertisement
banner, an icon, or a video or an audio clip, the browser ends
up being connected to the advertiser’s server or web site 18 for
that advertisement object.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
3:24-63:
In FIG. 1, a user operates a web browser, such as Netscape or
Microsoft Internet Explorer, on a computer or PDA or other
Internet capable device 16 to generate through the hypertext
transfer protocol (HTTP) 14 a request 20 to any one of
preferably a plurality of affiliate web sites 12. The affiliate
web site sends one or more messages back 22 using the same
protocol. Those messages 22 preferably contain all of the
information available at the particular web site 12 for the
requested page to be displayed by the user’s browser 16 except
for one or more advertising objects such as banner
advertisements. These objects preferably do not reside on the
affiliate’s web server. Instead, the affiliate’s web server sends
131

Reference

Disclosure
back a link including an IP address for a node running an
advertiser server process 19 as well as information about the
page on which the advertisement will be displayed. The link by
way of example may be a hypertext markup language (HTML)
<img> tag, referring to, for example, an inline image such as a
banner. The user’s browser 16 then transmits a message 23
using the received IP address to access such an object
indicated by the HTML tag from the advertisement server 19.
Included in each message 23 typically to the advertising server
19 are: the user’s IP address, (ii) a cookie if the browser 16 is
cookie enabled and stores cookie information, (iii) a substring
key indicating the page in which the advertisement to be
provided from the server is to be embedded, and (iv) MIME
header information indicating the browser type and version,
the operating system of the computer on which the browser is
operating and the proxy server type. Upon receiving the
request in the message 23, the advertising server process 19
determines which advertisement or other object to provide to
user’s browser and transmits the messages 24 containing the
object such as a banner advertisement to the user’s browser 16
using the HTTP protocol. Preferably contained within the
HTTP message is a unique identifier for the advertiser’s web
page appropriate for the advertisement. That advertisement
object is then displayed on the image created by the web user’s
browser as a composite of the received affiliate’s web page
plus the object transmitted back by the advertising web server.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II), Fig.
1:

132

Reference

Disclosure

MERRIMAN II (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
9:38-41:
2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting an advertisement
based upon stored information about said user node comprises
selecting an advertisement based upon a prior content request
sent from said user node to an affiliate node.
DoubleClick Named
ALTAVISTA, p. 1:
Advertising Sales and
In a move that will provide online advertisers access to its
Distribution Partner for
leading Internet search engine, Digital Equipment
AltaVista Search Site;
Corporation's (NYSE: DEC) AltaVista Internet Software
Leading Internet Ad
subsidiary has signed an agreement with DoubleClick, Inc., the
Network Teams with
premier Internet advertising network. The agreement grants
Net's Largest Search
DoubleClick rights to market display ad banners on selected
Engine, PR Newswire
AltaVista Search pages, as well as create sponsorship
(Dec. 18, 1996)
opportunities for major advertisers. The agreement is effective
(“AltaVista”)
immediately. Details were not disclosed.
“We continuously strive to enhance the effectiveness and value
of our service," said Ilene H. Lang, president and CEO of
AltaVista Internet Software, Inc. “By partnering with
DoubleClick, we can now provide an informative advertising
service to our millions of users without compromising search
performance. DoubleClick’s leadership technology for
targeting and delivering ads will allow AltaVista Search to
maintain sub-second response times for user queries, to present
highly relevant advertisements in response to selected queries,
and to participate in a growing revenue opportunity."
133

Reference

Disclosure
"AltaVista Search is an unparalleled Internet service," states
Kevin O'Connor, president and CEO of DoubleClick. "We're
extremely proud that DoubleClick has met AltaVista's high
standards for performance and service, and that they've chosen
us as their advertising partner. Working together, we have
created a 'no compromise' service which benefits AltaVista
Search's widely respected professional user base as well as online advertisers of all industries."
Doubleclick Debuts
DOUBLECLICK DEBUTS, p. 2:
New Tool For Testing
Currently, the DoubleClick Network offers advertisers the
Creative On The Web,
ability to distribute their ad banners to more than 25
PR Newswire (May 20,
independent sites, including: Excitel, I-Golf, WITI (Women in
1996).
Technology), Travelocity, Quicken Financial Network and
Sportsline. The Network represents a broad range of users
including; investors, business professionals, college students,
women, consumers, gamers and sports enthusiasts. Ad banner
distribution through the DoubleClick Network can be executed
in a variety of ways; by appearing on all 25 Web sites, on only
one Web site, or on any combination of Web sites.
Web offers wide
BRAY, p. 1:
audience, pinpoint
DoubleClick has assembled a network of about 30 Internet
accuracy, The Boston
sites, including the Excite search engine, the SportsLine sports
Globe (May 5, 1996)
news service and the Travelocity travel-planning service. The
(“Bray”)
members sell ad space to major companies such as Microsoft,
Intel and Bank of America. But instead of displaying the ads to
all comers, DoubleClick targets them to particular viewers.
Poppe Tyson Partners
POPPE TYSON, p. 1:
With Atlanta Software
DoubleClick’s network, which is currently live on a number of
Leader To Form
major sites as part of a beta test, is anticipated to have in
Doubleclick -- The First
excess of 200 quality Web sites by the end of the year. The
Advertising Network
network will go live in early April. Currently, DoubleClick
For The Internet, PR
represents two leading Web sites, Netscape and Excite!. In
Newswire (Feb. 6,
addition, the DoubleClick network will offer advertisers a
1996).
unique ability to customize and target ads to specific users and
to measure results.
NAQVI WO
NAQVI WO at Abstract - “The advertisements on the server are not
tied to any particular page containing information on the network, but
rather, are retrieved in response to a query entered by the user (17) and
dynamically mixed with the content of the pages returned in response
to the query (16). The present invention displays the content pages
with focused, targeted advertisements
as a part of the page, in accordance with a particular layout.”
NAQVI WO, p. 2 - “That is, when a user uses certain search engines for
conducting a search, the user will be shown advertisements while
134

Reference

Disclosure
doing the searching. These advertisements are sometimes referred to
as "banner" advertisements because they simulate a banner that the
user sees as the user is traveling down a "road" on the computer
network. These advertisements are typically tied to a
particular search page that the user encounters during the
search. The current state of the art is such that when the user uses a
search engine, a randomly selected advertisement is shown as if it is
part of the search page. For example, the user may enter a search
request to see a home page on cooking and, as a part of that page, the
existing systems might display an advertisement about cars. This is a
problem, of course, because there is no connection made between the
content of the advertisements or the message of the advertisements
and what the user is actually searching.”
NAQVI WO, p. 3 – “It is a further object of the present invention to
provide a method and system for advertising on a computer
network in which advertisements are more focused and
targeted, for example, by user queries and user profiles,
including the past history of the user's interactions with
the system.”
NAQVI WO, p. 4 – “The present invention provides a new process and
system for online advertising. This new process will be
referred to throughout this application as query-based
advertising ("QBA"). In the QBA process, advertisements
are primarily triggered by user queries. User queries, as
15 used herein, refer to requests from an information consumer
for one or more pages of information from a computer
network. As a result of a query, a user is exposed to
advertisements with the present invention, i.e., the query
triggers advertisements.”
NAQVI WO, p. 5-6 - “When the user requests a certain page or a
certain topic of information, the relevant pages are retrieved from
the computer network and shown to the user. The present invention,
upon receiving the user's request, retrieves advertisements that are
related to the user's action, dynamically mixes the advertisements with
the content of the pages according to a particular layout, and displays
the pages with focused, targeted advertisements as a part of the page.
The advertisements can be made to satisfy a set of constraints
requested by the advertiser, as well as the constraints of the publisher
of the page, as further discussed below. The advertisement triggering
mechanism of the present invention is not random or coincidental, but
rather, is prespecified in advance. This specification will be referred to
in this application as a contract. A contract specifies the marketing
135

Reference

Disclosure
rules that link advertisements with specific queries. For example, a
diet soft drink advertisement may be shown when a user asks for a
page about exercising equipment. These rules are specified by
advertisers implementing the concept of "focus" or "relevance" of
advertisements and help the advertisers to target a specific audience.
Owners of pages specify the focus content of their pages through
special tags within a page. These tags are not displayed to the
information consumer; the tags are used to decide what advertisement
can be shown when the page is requested by a consumer. The notion
of a contract, however, goes well beyond
just marketing rules. First of all, the advertising space
on the online medium, although technically unlimited, is
severely restricted by the user's attention span. Placing advertisements
on the first page which constitutes the answer to a query gives the
advertisements much higher probability to be seen than on later pages
of the answer.”
NAQVI WO, p. 7-8 – “A consequence of QBA is that ads cannot be
placed on pages a priori because it is the query that determines what
ads are to be placed on a page. This is referred to as
dynamic advertising. The query asks for a page that has a
30 focus. Ads that are resident in the system are checked to
determine which ads can potentially be placed on the page
in question. This decision is based on matching the focus
of a page with the focus of the ad. When not all matching
ads can be placed on a page because of space limitations,
the contract enforcement feature of the present invention
ensures that the ads that are placed on the page are
5 consistent with the contracts signed by the system with the
advertiser.”
NAQVI WO, p. 9 – “In summary, the present invention provides a
system and method for advertising on a computer network,
comprising a server containing a plurality of
advertisements, means for electronically connecting the
server to a computer network, and means for selecting and
15 retrieving an advertisement from the server in response to
a query entered on the network. The selecting means
comprises means for ensuring that a selected advertisement
is relevant to the query. A mixer means is provided for
combining a retrieved advertisement with a content page
20 returned by the computer network in response to the query.
The mixer means comprises a layout manager means for
computing an optimum layout of a combined page containing
the retrieved advertisement and the content page. The
136

Reference

Disclosure
mixer means also comprises a typography manager means for
25 detecting special tags and HTML rules in the content page
and for determining which part of the content page the
selected advertisement can be displayed on. The content
page is provided by a home page dispatcher, a search
engine, or a generic HTML content provider in response to
30 the query.”
NAQVI WO, p. 24-25 - In using a yellow page publisher there are two
broad 20 distinctions for a query. A client may be asking for a
certain category of listings, or the client may be asking
for a particular vendor. For example, the user could ask
for car dealers in Morristown, NJ (i.e., a category of
listings), or the user could ask for Morristown BMW located
25 on South Street in Morristown, NJ (i.e., a particular
vendor) . The system determines which of the two types of
queries or searches the user has made, as illustrated by
box 32 in Fig. 2. If the query is for a certain category,
the process will go to the left hand side of the flow chart
30 of Fig. 2, and if the query is for a certain vendor, the
process will go to the right hand side of the flow chart of
Fig. 2. The left hand side of the flow chart will be
explained first.
After determining the type of query, the category
search engine 33 next determines which category best fits
5 the user's request. The user may have asked for "car," but
the category in the yellow page provider's index may in
fact say "automobile." Or, the user may have asked for
"spectacles," and the category in the yellow page provider
may be called "optician." The matching of these variations
10 of terms is performed by the category search engine 33.
Once it has been determined which category the user's
request falls into, the advertisement selection process
comes into play with the ad selector 34. The ad selector
34 determines what advertisements are best suited to be
15 mixed in with what the user has requested. The content
from the category search engine 33 and the ad(s) from the
ad selector 34 are then given to a mixer 35. The mixer 35
functions to mix the content coming from the search engine
with the ad(s) selected by the ad selector 34. The result
20 is the creation of a page that is of interest to the user.
If the user's category was about cars, at this point
137

Reference

Disclosure
the ad selector 34 would have presumably found
advertisements related to cars and displayed these ads at
step 36 to the user. The user at this point can select one
or more of the listed or advertised car dealers. This
again results in more advertisements being selected by the
ad selector 34, as well as the accessing of a vendor search
engine 37 provided by the yellow page publisher, and a new
page being shown to the user.”
NAQVI WO, p. 32-33 – “Referring to Fig. 6, a process flow of the
mixer and ad selector will be described. The purpose of the mixer 35
(as previously described in reference to Fig. 2) is to take
publishers' content and advertisements and combine them
15 together so that the content and the advertisements are
mixed on the same page.
In Fig. 6, the mixer 35 is shown receiving two inputs
from the publishers: data 50 (which is the content) and EHTML
61 (which contains the special tags). The layout
20 manager 10 and parser 60 both form a part of the mixer 35.
The data 50 is input to the layout manager 10, and the
E_HTML 61 is input to the E_HTML parser 60, as previously
discussed. Both of these sub-modules then determine where
the advertisements can be placed on the publisher's page.
25 The advertisement list is then input from the ad
selector 34. The ad selector 34 receives a focus input 43,
retrieves relevant ads (step 70), and creates the
advertisement list using the prime space manager 20 (step
71). These advertisements are then placed in the parser 60
30 and the layout manager 10 (step 72), as described above.
The mixer 35 then logs all the essential billing and other
user information (step 73) for keeping track of the
system's placement of an advertiser's ad. At this point, a
refresh tag is inserted (step 74) and the system outputs an
HTML page (step 75).”
NAQVI WO, p. 39-40 - “Referring to Fig. 10, the flow of an ad
placement
process 110 according to the present invention will be
described. The purpose of ad placement is to allow
advertisers to enter their advertisements into the system.
For entering an ad, the system provides a screen that is
shown to the user asking whether the user wants to enter an
ad. If the user indicates yes by clicking on that
20 particular choice, the system enters the start 111 of the
138

Reference

Disclosure
ad placement mode. At this point the system asks the user
for the focus (step 112). The advertiser may say, for
example, that he is in the car business, the car washing
business, or that he is a physician, a lawyer or whatever
25 other category name that he wants to give. The user is
also asked for an advertisement name at step 112. This is
just a name for future reference.
The purpose of the focus in step 112, as discussed
above, is to prevent an advertisement from being shown that
30 is not relevant to the query at hand. The system of the
present invention always shows advertisements that are
relevant to what the user has asked for. Therefore, it is
of paramount importance that the system know the context of
the ad. Thus, when the advertiser places an ad, the system
establishes the focus.”
NAQVI WO at Claim 3, 8, 9
Figures 1, 2, 7, 8A, 8B, 10, 11 (and associated text)

BULL

BULL at Col. 4 - “Along with displays, including those for data entry,
searches, search results, information retrieval, the user will
be presented with advertisements and/or coupons based on
criteria entered by advertisers. This criteria may take the
form of simple logic, linking an ad/coupon with a display or
be derived from complex software text search agents that
analyze one or more of the following: The user’s looking
pattern, the user’s psychographic profile, the user’s personal
profile, the availability of the advertiser’s/couponer’s goods
or services at the instant in time that the criteria is being
exercised. The placement of the ad/coupon will be logged
along with user profile information and provided to the
advertiser/couponer in some form of report.”
BULL at Col. 4 - “III. Software Agent Advertising Insertion.
Currently, advertisements in WWW pages are tightly tied
to each page, are inserted based on keywords or on a
psychographic profile of the user. Certain criteria will be entered
which delineates a pattern that is requested to be monitored. When this
pattern is seen or is in close match) in the user’s WWW activity, the
insertion mechanism is activated. If a certain web page is requested,
the present invention will display a particular
advertisement. The ad will be inserted based on the content
of the existing web page being read. An analysis of the text
stream of the user’s interactive session will be performed
139

Reference

Disclosure
on-line. For instance, if the user accesses web pages for
Holiday Inns on the West Coast, the insertion mechanism
could be established to automatically insert ads for Hilton
Inns on the West Coast.”
BULL at Cols. 6-7 – “Initial Setup for Advertisers and Lead Generation
Advertisers: Advertisers, using a user access system 100 enter criteria
that should met for an advertisement/coupon placement. These criteria
are in the form of the complex software text search agents described
above. This includes a match
“threshold.” When this threshold is met or exceeded, an
ad/coupon will be appended to a system session. Statistical
analysis known as clustering is used to evaluate the data.
The ad/coupon may be resident on the user access system
100, an advertiser’s computer system (400 . . . N) or stored
in the Advertising DataStore 250. Additionally, the Advertiser may
include conditional criteria for ad/coupon place
ment (available inventory, in stock levels, excess capacity,
etc.). This criteria is referenced when the “threshold” is met
and if satisfactory, the ad/coupon is appended. This criteria
may be tested against data input through the user access
system 100, data on the advertising datastore 250 or data on
the advertiser’s computer system (400 . . . N). Additionally,
advertisers can input World Wide Web referential
information (hot links) to be displayed with ads/coupons or
on geographic map displays. These are stored on the adver
tising datastore 250”
BULL at Col. 10 – “233 Ad/Coupon Insertion Agents
These are complex software text search patterns that when
matched within the text being reviewed within a given
session, cause an advertisement/coupon to be added into the
display. These can be direct insertion or conditioned from
criteria on the Advertiser’s Computer Systems (400 . . . N)
and/or the user’s profile from the user profile datastore 210”
BULL at Col. 12 – “296 Ad/Coupon Insertion System
This looks at the current display requested by the user
with a Ad/Coupon Insertion Agent 233, determines which
ads should be placed (or rotated) and makes the placement
(or establishes the rotation).”
BULL at Col. 12 – “Certain criteria will be entered which delineates a
pattern that is requested to be monitored. When this pattern is seen (or
is in close match) in the user’s WWW activity, the insertion
140

Reference

SUBMIT-IT

HEALTHGATE

INFOSEEK

Disclosure
mechanism is activated. If a certain web page is
requested, the present invention will display a particular
advertisement. The ad will be inserted based on the content
of the existing web page being read. An analysis of the text
stream of the user’s interactive session will be performed
online. When certain text patterns are observed (or close
matches are observed), an advertisement is inserted into the
display. The advertising may be static or connected to the adver
tiser’s computer datastore which designates specific ads or
coupons based on the pattern match and other conditions
which may be required. The software agent criteria is entered by the
merchant in the agent data store 230 which delineates a pattern that
needs to be monitored.
As an example, if the user accesses web pages for
“Holiday Inns on the West Coast”, the insertion mechanism
Would be established to automatically insert ads for “Hilton
Inns on the West Coast.””
BULL at Figs. 1 - 7 (and associated text)
TECHCRUNCH11 at 2-3 - “But we weren’t the first to appreciate the true
value of search. Submit-It, founded a few years earlier in a dorm
room by Scott Banister, helped website owners submit their URLs to
multiple search engines and directories. Banister saw how badly his
customers wanted to secure placement on search results. In 1996, he
brilliantly conceived an idea he called “Keywords”: to sell search
listings based on pay-for-placement bidding – more or less the same as
today’s AdWords. Banister began pitching the idea to anybody who
would listen to him, including, among others, Bill Gross of IdeaLab,
and the principals of LinkExchange: Tony Hsieh, Sanjay Madan, and
me.”
HEALTHGATE.COM12 - “Due to our aggressive pricing and volume
discount plans, the actual cost per thousand (CPM) impressions may
vary. Our Keyword Plan gives you the ability to ensure that your ad
will be displayed whenever a user enters your pre-defined keyword.”
PRNEWS at 1: “It is possible for a company to buy its own name or an

11

TECHCRUNCH shall refer to Ali Partovi, “Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search
Business Model,” posted Aug. 29, 2010

12

HEALTHGATE.COM will refer to the HealthGate.com website at the webpage currently
available at
https://web.archive.org/web/19961105192255/http:/www.healthgate.com/HealthGate/product/sp
onsorship.html

141

Reference

Disclosure
ad to ensure it is listed at the top of a search results page);
(“WebCrawler, Lycos and InfoSeek offer advertisement banner links,
however Alta Vista’s product is still in beta-test.”)
FROOK at 1: “These advertisements work by delivering a sales pitch
along with the results of a key-word search on a search engine. For
example, a user searching under the subject "cars" might receive a
Web ad for Genetal Motors Corp. or Chrysler Corp., while a search
for modems might delivervan ad for online computer superstore
NECX Direct.”

OPEN TEXT INDEX

CNET - “Open Text is offering to help those publishers by allowing
them premium slots in its search engine without requiring them to buy
more expensive advertising banners. Under the company's Preferred
Listing [http://www.opentext.com/omw/preferred_c.html] service, a
merchant that sells personal computers online, for example, could
ensure that its Web site appears as the top listing in searches for the
terms PC and computer.”
FAIN - “Paid search reconciled this dilemma by tying
the search engine’s revenue to the act of transferring
the user to an advertiser’s site. In 1996, the search
engine Open Text briefly offered preferred listings,
in which sites would pay to be inserted into the
search result set for particular keywords.”

PR NEWS

PR NEWS at 1: “The general solution to avoid getting buried by others'
words is to buy a ‘search word,’ an option introduced last year by
several search engines.
For example, it is possible for a company to buy its own name or an
ad to ensure it is listed at the top of the search results.
Time Warner could thus ensure that anyone who enters the term ‘Time
Warner’ will see its home page or ad at the top of the search results.
Charges for banner ads in search engines vary, but tend to be
expensive, according to Beth Lanahan, spokesperson for one of the
Web's more popular search engines, InfoSeek. Depending on
Impression and specific topic, advertisements that rotate through
directories range from $7,500 to $73,000 for a four-week period.
Advertisements that appear only with the results of a specific key
word search are a minimum of $1,000 for a four-week period.
WebCrawler, Lycos and Infoseek offer advertisement banner links,
however Alta Vista's product is still in beta-test.”
142

Reference

Disclosure

KOHDA ’96

KOHDA ’96, §1: “An advertising agent is placed between the
advertisers and the users. Advertisements fetched from advertisers'
Web servers are merged with Web pages from ordinary Web servers
by the agent, and the merged pages are displayed on the users' Web
browser. Thus, the users see advertisements on any server around on
the Internet. Moreover the agent has chances to deliver appropriate
advertisements which suit each user's taste.”
Id., §2.1: “First of all, the advertising agent company makes a contract
with advertiser companies. Remark that ordinary users can become
advertisers or advertising agents if they are ready to pay for it, but we
use the word, company, to make the explanation brief. The agent
company is responsible for delivering advertisements to users. The
advertisements are stored on the agent's Web server.”
Id., §2.2: “When a user clicks an anchor on a page displayed on the
browser, the browser contacts the Web server and returns a Web page
designated by the anchor. Simultaneously, the browser contacts the
advertising agent's Web server. The agent's Web server returns a Web
page of one of its advertisements. Then the browser merges those
returned Web pages, and displays a composite page on the screen.”
Id., §2.2: “Note that the agent is aware of the identity of the user and
which page the user is about to read on the browser, so the advertising
agent can tailor advertisements for individuals and their current
interests. Thus it prevents the user from having to see advertisements
that are unrelated to their current interests.”
Id., §3.2: “The filter keeps in memory the contact path (URL) to the
agent's Web server. When it is invoked, it forwards the invocation
parameters passed from the browser to the agent's Web server, and
waits for a reply. Then, the agent's Web server returns one of its
advertisements or other useful information. The filter merges the reply
from the agent's Web server before the input from the pipe, i.e., Web
pages from other Web servers.”
Fig. 2:

143

Reference

Disclosure

144

Reference

Disclosure

KOHDA ’853

KOHDA ’853 at 38:30-35: “the advertising information server provides
the advertising information automatically based upon the retrieval
condition data, wherein another predetermined tag is added to the
provided condition data to retrieve advertising information, and is
derived from the retrieval information.”
Id. at 23:60 to 24:7: “When the user is obtaining the information about
the sales conditions of the latest automobiles, the information server
100 to obtains and analyzes the retrieval information to be obtained by
the user, and recognizes that the information relates to the sales
conditions of the latest automobiles.... Then, the information server
102 selects the advertising information about, for example, sports cars
from a large volume of advertising information relating to
automobiles, and transmits the selected information to the information
retrieving apparatus 100. As a result, the advertising information in
which the user may be interested can be transmitted to the user,
thereby enhancing the advertising effect.”
Id. at 6:56 to 7:3: “The user inputs data for use in obtaining requested
retrieved information (for example, articles from a newspaper relating
to a specified item) through the input/output unit 1. Then, the
information retrieving apparatus 100 obtains the retrieved information
from the information retrieving server through the retrieved
information obtaining unit 3, automatically obtains additional
information such as advertising information from the information
server through the additional information obtaining unit 4,
incorporates the obtained information into the retrieved information
obtained from the information converting unit 2, and outputs the result
on a display unit.”
Id. at 6:13-18: “The input/output unit 1 receives data for use in
obtaining retrieved information (common information) and additional
information (advertising information) from the user, and outputs the
retrieved information and additional information obtained from the
server to the display unit.”
Id. at 13:40-43: “The information converting unit 2 incorporates the
additional information stored by the additional information storage
unit 44 into the retrieved information stored by the retrieved
information storage unit 34.”
Id. at 17:8-10: “[T]he user obtains an output with a corresponding
advertisement incorporated.”
145

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at 17:56-59: “The additional information 107, that is, advertising
information is displayed at the top of the screen while the retrieved
information 106 is displayed at the bottom of the screen.”
Figure 5a:

See e.g., LITTLE, p. 75: “Consumers can use computer-based searching
techniques to quickly locate products and to shop for competitive
prices on a single site or across many sites.”
See e.g., ADAM, p. 818 (“Electronic commerce (EC) and digital
libraries (DL) are two increasingly important areas of computer and
information sciences, with different user requirements but similar
infrastructure requirements. . . . An EC/DL system is characterized as
a collection of distributed autonomous sites (servers) that work
together to give the consumer the appearance of a single cohesive
collection.”); id., p. 821 (“From an EC perspective, consumers seek to
find products and services at low cost using language and terminology
they are most familiar with. The unique challenges for EC include:
create mechanisms to allow buyers to locate products and services
with specific characteristics and to allow sellers to locate potential
buyers with specific traits (matchmaking services); and provide secure
bidding and negotiation systems with which a buyer can solicit bids
and receive quotes.”)
Business Briefcase
See e.g., BUSINESS BRIEFCASE, p. 1 (“Digital Equipment Corp. of
refers to Business
Maynard said yesterday it had sold rights to advertise on its popular
Briefcase, The Boston
AltaVista Internet search engine to DoubleClick Inc., a Net ad
Herald (Dec. 19, 1996). network. The deal lets DoubleClick sell display space on selected
(BUSINESS BRIEFCASE) AltaVista pages. Financial details were not disclosed.”)
DoubleClick Named
See e.g., ALTAVISTA, p. 1 (“In a move that will provide online
Advertising Sales and
advertisers access to its leading Internet search engine, Digital
Distribution Partner for Equipment Corporation's (NYSE: DEC) AltaVista Internet Software
AltaVista Search Site;
subsidiary has signed an agreement with DoubleClick, Inc., the
Leading Internet Ad
premier Internet advertising network. The agreement grants
Network Teams with
DoubleClick rights to market display ad banners on selected AltaVista
146

Reference
Net's Largest Search
Engine, PR Newswire
(Dec. 18, 1996).
(ALTAVISTA)

FLYNN

MEEKER

Disclosure
Search pages, as well as create sponsorship opportunities for major
advertisers. The agreement is effective immediately. Details were not
disclosed. ‘We continuously strive to enhance the effectiveness and
value of our service,’ said Ilene H. Lang, president and CEO of
AltaVista Internet Software, Inc. ‘By partnering with DoubleClick, we
can now provide an informative advertising service to our millions of
users without compromising search performance. DoubleClick’s
leadership technology for targeting and delivering ads will allow
AltaVista Search to maintain sub-second response times for user
queries, to present highly relevant advertisements in response to
selected queries, and to participate in a growing revenue opportunity.’
‘AltaVista Search is an unparalleled Internet service,’ states Kevin
O'Connor, president and CEO of DoubleClick. ‘We're extremely
proud that DoubleClick has met AltaVista's high standards for
performance and service, and that they've chosen us as their
advertising partner. Working together, we have created a 'no
compromise' service which benefits AltaVista Search's widely
respected professional user base as well as on-line advertisers of all
industries.’”
See e.g., FLYNN, p. 2 (“Yahoo!, for example, uses [NetGravity’s]
AdServer . . . AdServer offers Yahoo! several features for targeting
ads to specific visitors. For starters, when a visitor to the Yahoo! site
conducts a search by inputting a keyword, advertising related to that
keyword appear on the screen. A visitor might, for example, conduct
a search for Web pages related to cars. The server would then display
an ad related to cars when it displays the results of the query.”
MEEKER at 1-9: “Other advantages for advertisers include: parallel
delivery of an ad with the content a user is searching for, like a
billboard for a restaurant along a highway (in TV, advertisements are
delivered serially with content).”
Id. at 6-2: “Each time the page is downloaded by a user, a designated
space on the page (in the example in Figure 6-1, a rectangle across the
top) is automatically filled with a banner. The method by which a site
determines which ad to put into which download may depend on
agreements or contracts with advertisers, the capability of the
technology involved, the demographics of the user, and other factors.”
Id. at 6-6: “Search engines, by definition, use text input by users to
conduct searches of relevant content on the Web. Since
advertisements are displayed along with the search results, these
companies allow advertisers to buy “key words,” which display the
advertiser’s banner when a user searches for the word purchased. It
follows that the word or words purchased are generally related in
some way to the advertiser’s products or services. Infoseek and
147

Reference

PHILLIPS BUSINESS

DEDRICK 1995

GALLAGHER

Disclosure
Yahoo! charge $1,000 per month per keyword, and based on a target
of 20,000 impressions, this would yield a CPM of $50. For example,
Figure 6-3 shows how the results of a search for the word “router”
yielded a typical list of sites but also netted an advertisement for
Cabletron Systems (a maker of switches, considered an alternative to
routers). In fact, any time this word was searched for, the same ad
came up. A search for “hub” consistently resulted in a different ad for
the same company. (Yes, we searched for “beer,” and each time we
got a Miller Genuine Draft ad).”
PHILLIPS BUSINESS at 1: “Another approach to selling ads is through
leasing key search words. Advertisers can purchase the rights to a key
word not necessarily one derived from their own products. If a search
term matches a key word, their ad will be placed. Lycos Marketing
Manager Sarah Garnsey said users who enter the key word
"Windows" on the Lycos engine,
for example, will see an ad for IBM. She added that AT&T {T} once
owned the key word "telephone.”
See e.g., DEDRICK 1995, p. 44-45 (“A hyptertext linking (hot-link)
capability is a very important feature in electronic ads. Elements can
contain hypertext link attributes embedded by the electronic ad’s
author during element creation. This hypertext link capability allows
the advertiser to change an element, and thus the ad, dynamically at
any time. This dynamic upgrade-ability is gained by enabling the
hypertext link to point across the content distribution network to
elements residing on remote servers. These elements can contain
actual advertising content, or they might themselves be hypertext links
pointing to other elements. Invocation of a hypertext link might be the
result of a process-triggered function or consumer interaction (such as
a consumer clicking on a hot spot in a graphic or digital video clip
within an electronic ad.) Hypertext links within regular electronic
content might also point to related electronic advertising elements.
For example, if an author publishes an article electronically, the author
could insert a hot spot into the article that, when selected by the
consumer, will point to a related electronic ad. By selecting the hot
spot, the consumer triggers the ad to be downloaded to the local
consumption device.”); id., p. 45 (“Other profile data might include
key words and other variables used by consumption agents for finding
both electronic content and electronic ads that have a certain ‘hit rate’
when matched against a consumer’s profile.”); id., p. 46 (“As personal
consumption profiles become more robust, consumers might begin to
see ads focusing on their favorite subjects, presented primarily in their
favorite colors, sizes and shapes. Also, their agents might report the
availability of electronic content and ads matching their personal
profiles.”)
See e.g., GALLAGHER, p. 3 (“As of August 1996, both Yahoo! and
148

Reference

NETGRAVITY
ADSERVER CHOSEN BY
GNN

Lycos, Inc. Registration
Statement No. 333-354,
dated April 3, 1996
(“LYCOS PROSPECUS”),
produced at GOOGWRD-00872476GOOG-WRD00872549

Disclosure
Excite offered advertisers three options: general rotation, geographic
or content targeting, and keyword-based targeting. . . . The third
option, keyword-based targeting makes greater use of the targeting
potential of information services. A company can buy keywords so
that whenever a user enters one of those keywords during a search,
s/he will be exposed to the company’s banner advertisement. This
ensures that that the banner advertisement is presented only to people
with a demonstrated interest in the area. For instance, a marketer of
golf equipment might buy the keyword ‘golf.’ Every time a user enters
“golf” in a search, a banner advertisement for the equipment would
appear.”); id., Appendix 2
See e.g., NETGRAVITY ADSERVER CHOSEN BY GNN (“NetGravity, the
leader in Internet advertising technology, today announced GNN, a
service of America Online Inc., will take advantage of the NetGravity
AdServer technology for WebCrawler. . . . This allows GNN to . . .
dynamically deliver targeted ads. . . . Now, through NetGravity’s
relationship with I/Pro, Web sites will be able to develop and place
advertising much more effectively using management tools with
demographic profiles for targeted ad placement.”)
See LYCOS PROSPECTUS at GOOG-WRD-00872477:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872482:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872499:

149

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872500:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872501:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872502:

Lycos, Inc. Form S-1
Registration Statement,
dated February 14,
1996 (“LYCOS S-1”),
produced at GOOGWRD-00872550GOOG-WRD00872923

See LYCOS S-1 at GOOG-WRD-00872554:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872558:

150

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872575:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872576:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872577:

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872578:

151

Reference
Excite, Inc. SB-2
Registration Statement
No. 333-2328-LA,
March 11, 1996
(“Excite SB-2”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00872006GOOG-WRD00872094

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872010.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872017-18.

152

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872044.

Id.
Excite, Inc. Prospectus,
dated April 3, 1996
(“Excite Prospectus”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00871928GOOGL-WRD00872005

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871930.

153

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871937-38.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00871964.

154

Reference

Disclosure

Id.
InfoSeek Corporation
S-1 Registration
Statement No. 3334142, Amendment No.
1, dated May 3, 1996
(“InfoSeek S-1”)
produced at GOOGWRD-00872371GOOG-WRD00872464
InfoSeek S-1 at GOOG-WRD-00872375.

155

Reference

Disclosure

Id.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872376.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872378.

156

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872403.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872404.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872404-05.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872409-10.

157

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872410.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872411.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00872413.
Yahoo Prospectus
Registration Statement
No. 333-2142, dated
April 12, 1996 (“Yahoo
Prospectus”) produced
at GOOG-WRD00874251-GOOGWRD-00874328

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874252.

158

Reference

Disclosure

Yahoo Prospectus at GOOG-WRD-00874253.

159

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874254.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874289.

160

Reference
Yahoo Form SB-2
Registration Statement
No. 333-2142, dated
March 7, 1996 (“Yahoo
Form SB-2”) produced
at GOOG-WRD00874329-GOOGWRD-00874418

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874332.

161

Reference

Disclosure

Yahoo Form SB-2 at GOOG-WRD-00874333.

162

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874334.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00874366-67.

163

Reference
Disclosure
Open Text Form F-1
Registration Statement
No. 33-98858, dated
November 1, 1995
(“Open Text Form F1”) produced at GOOGWRD-00873727GOOG-WRD00873878

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873603.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873609.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873612.

164

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873637.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873642.

Id. at GOOG-WRD-00873646.
165

Reference

Disclosure

Open Prospectus, dated
January 23, 1996
(“Open Text
Prospectus”) produced
at OT03652-3758

Id. at OT03653.

Id. at OT03662-63.

166

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03663.

Id. at OT03665.

167

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at OT03667.

Id. at OT03692-93.

Id. at OT03693-94.

168

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03694-95.

169

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03697.

Id. at OT03697-98.
170

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03698-99.

Id. at OT03700.
171

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03702.

Id. at OT03702-03.

172

Reference

Disclosure

Id. at OT03703-04.

Id. at OT03705.

173

Table B4: User Preference Input and User Profile Data
To the extent the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 does not disclose the
limitations identified in each chart citing Table B4, one of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to combine the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 with any one or more
of the Table B4 references listed below because: it would have yielded predictable results; using
the techniques of the Table B4 references would have improved the primary or obviousness
references in the same way; and applying the techniques of the Table B4 references to improve
primary or obviousness references would have yielded predictable results.
Reference
U.S. Patent No.
6,119,101
(“PECKOVER”)

Disclosure
See, e.g., PECKOVER, 10:20-29:
A practical and viable electronic marketplace involves the
exchange of market information, as well as the more obvious
trading for goods and services. From a consumer’s point of
view, shopping is a means of gathering data about goods and
services offered. This data is used by the consumer to compare
and rank offerings and to make decisions about purchases.
From a provider’s point of view, consumer shopping is an
opportunity to gather data about consumer needs and interests.
This data is used by the provider to improve product and
service offerings.
PECKOVER, 11:44-46:
Advertising may have higher success rates since the targeted
consumers have expressed an interest in the product.
PECKOVER, 11:54-64:
The mechanism for quantifying consumer demand uses data
based on individual buying decisions, not merely aggregate or
estimated data.
Providers can quantify demand in real-time.
Providers have a mechanism for discovering the reasons for
lost sales.
Providers can provide a consideration to consumers for
viewing advertisements and other notices.
Providers can receive feedback in real-time about the success
of promotions.
PECKOVER, 17:16-22:
Agents and other components of Agent System 10 record and
access system history data (records of searches, transactions,
etc.) in System History Data 36 component. Most of the
174

Reference

Disclosure
system history is more conveniently accessed through logs and
archives located within various functional components, but
System History Data 36 maintains the “master” copy.
PECKOVER, 18:30-39:
Personal Agent 12 or 13 is the point of contact between a user
and the Agent System 10. Personal Agent 12 or 13 acts as an
electronic “butler” or assistant, accepting requests from the
user, delegating tasks to other agents in the system, and
arranging for responses from various agents to the user to be
delivered at a time and in a manner that is convenient for the
user. Consumer Personal Agent 12, via its internal functions,
maintains the user’s preferences and other data about the user,
some of which is protected from unauthorized access.
PECKOVER, 19:3-32:
A Preference Manager function 54 maintains data about the
preferences of the user. Preferences indicate items of interest to
the user, such as favorite brands, interest in sports, etc. Within
Agent System 10, preference data also includes “demographic”
data. Demographic data indicates facts about the user, such as
whether the user is a homeowner, the user’s gender, the user’s
age group, etc. Although marketing industry usage of the term
“demographics” may include a person’s name, address, or
other identifying data, a Preference Manager’s demographic
data does not include data that identifies the particular user.
Preference data may be entered manually by the user using, for
example, a form on a Web page, or data may be loaded by a
System Administrator. Preferences may also be updated
automatically by the system as, for example, when the user
instructs the system to “remember” a product brand name from
a product search. Preference Manager 54 uses preference data
to order search results, so that items that are more likely to be
preferred by the user will be displayed first when the results
are delivered to the user. Referring now to FIG. 5A, each
preference datum 68 comprises not only a value 72, but also a
key 70 for ease of searching. Referring to FIG. 5B, a small
sample of preference data illustrates the kind of data that might
be used. A particular user typically will have much more
preference data. Some values are shown as “rank m in n” to
illustrate that ranking data may also be stored. The specific
keys of any particular set of preference data depends on what
the user has entered, etc. Only keys that are relevant to a
particular user are included in that user’s preferences, and the
specific data maintained will change over time.
PECKOVER, 19:33-34:
Referring again to FIG. 4A, a Delivery Manager function 56
175

Reference

Disclosure
accepts all messages, generated by agents or other components
of the system, that are directed to the user, and delivers those
messages according to the user’s desired delivery time and
delivery media. Default delivery time and delivery media are
specified as part of the user’s preferences (maintained by
Preference Manager 54). Individual messages may also have a
specified delivery time and delivery media that overrides the
defaults. Delivery Manager 56 establishes communication with
the user’s Communication Device 22 or 23 to effect delivery.
Messages may be sent to multiple devices if the user so
desires. Delivery Manager 56 queues messages that are to be
delivered at a future time.
PECKOVER, 20:65-21:4:
Referring again to FIG. 4A, a Target Manager function 66
assists the user in identifying Personal Agents to which
targeted ads may be delivered. Target Manager 66 can identify
Personal Agents based on preferences, demographic
characteristics, and Decision Agent activity. Target Manager
66 does not have access to private data of consumer Personal
Agents 12 such as name, address, etc.
PECKOVER, 21:57-61:
A Query 106 describes the product or product category for
which to search. Query 106 includes data from Product
Template 174 completed by the consumer and relevant data
from the consumer’s preferences, as assembled by Decision
Agent Factory 76 of the consumer’s Personal Agent 12.
PECKOVER, 21:64-67:
A Log function 110 stores records of the activities of Decision
Agent 14. These records may be consulted later, for example,
by a Demand Agent 16 that is calculating historical demand
for a product.
PECKOVER, 22:12-23:
A Demand Agent 16 acts on behalf of a provider user, as
instructed by the provider’s Personal Agent 13, to search out
and collect information from the Agent System 10 that helps
the provider quantify consumer demand and helps target
specialized advertisements to a group of consumers. A
provider may have multiple Demand Agents 16 active within
Agent System 10 at any time. For example, a provider may
have one Demand Agent 16 calculating historical demand over
the past month for a certain model of sports shoe, and have
another Demand Agent 16 searching for consumers who have
purchased sports shoes in the past month to receive ads for
sports socks.
PECKOVER, 28:62-67:
176

Reference

Disclosure
The consumer may select a delivery media (e-mail, Web page
display, etc.) and a delivery time and period (e.g., 6:00 p.m.
daily, Monday noon weekly, etc.), or default media and time is
noted (steps 276-280). At this point the Decision Query
composition is complete (step 282).
PECKOVER, 29:49-67:
The Decision Agent’s Response Manager 108 collects
references (step 326) to the matching ads found by Basic
Search Engine. The Response Manager also sends a response
to the Personal Agent that placed the advertisement (if the
placer so desired and marked in the ad), providing real-time
feedback to the placer. Immediate Agents then removes the
Decision Agent from its internal queue and gives the Decision
Agent back to Active Decision Agent Manager 152 (step 328).
PECKOVER, 30:33-54:
Referring now to FIG. 19, a Deliver Search Results subroutine
is referred to generally by reference numeral 360. Immediate
search results are delivered to the consumer when the
consumer’s desired delivery time is reached (which may be
immediately if the consumer has so requested). Intermediate
results from extended searched are delivered periodically
according to the consumer’s desired delivery period. When the
desired delivery time is reached (step 362), Preference
Manager 54 organizes the not-yet-delivered results according
to the consumer’s preferences (step 364). For example, results
that mention favored brands are ordered before results with
less favored brands. Delivery Manager 56 formats the
responses according to the consumer’s desired delivery media
(step 366). For example, if the consumer’s desired delivery
media is the Web, a Web page in HTML is generated. For
another example, if the consumer desires e-mail delivery, a
suitable representation is generated. When formatting is
complete, Delivery Manager 56 arranges the actual delivery of
the search results (step 368). If the Decision Agent has
completed its search, no more results will be forthcoming, so a
subroutine Expire Decision Agent expires the Decision Agent
(steps 370-372).
PECKOVER, Fig. 5B:

177

Reference

Disclosure

U.S. PATENT NO.
5,999,912 (“WODARZ”)

See, e.g., WODARZ, 1:63-2:21:
With the information from an ad tag, the parser determines
What ads are valid for the page containing the ad tag, such as
by searching through a conventional database. Each ad is
associated With an image (Which may include “none”) and a
network link (for example, by means of a universal resource
locator, or “URL”, address) to a Web page that the viewer
Would be sent to if the viewer selects (“clicks on”) the
associated ad. The parser generates a list of valid ads, selects
one that fulfills all the criteria of the ad tag, and generates
HTML code linking a particular ad to the ad tag. That HTML
code is then sent to the user.
The parser program can apply scheduling criteria to select ads
from the generated list of eligible candidates, such as: a “least
recently viewed” algorithm; random selection; selection based
upon time of day; selection based upon user-specific
characteristics, such as age, sex, language, etc.; and selection
based upon the maximum number of times that an ad has been
viewed in a specific time period. Advantages of the invention
are that it maximizes the number of advertisers per Web page;
it changes ads based upon page number; it tracks the number
of times an ad is viewed; it chooses only from eligible ads for
each page number; and it makes the entire set of Web page for
a site more attractive to viewers since changing Web pages on
the Internet attract more interest than static pages.
178

Reference

Disclosure

U.S. PATENT NO.
5,710,884 (“DEDRICK
PATENT”)

See, e.g., DEDRICK PATENT, 3:50-4:13:
Each client system 12 is provided with an interface, such as a
graphic user interface (GUI), that allows the end user to
participate in the system 10. The GUI contains fields that
receive or correspond to inputs entered by the end user. The
fields may include the user’s name and possibly a password.
The GUI may also have hidden fields relating to “consumer
variables.” Consumer variables refer to demographic,
psychographic and other profile information. Demographic
information refers to the vital statistics of individuals, such as
age, sex, income and marital status. Psychographic information
refers to the lifestyle and behavioral characteristics of
individuals, such as likes and dislikes, color preferences and
personality traits that show consumer behavioral
characteristics. Thus, the consumer variables refer to
information such as marital status, color preferences, favorite
sizes and shapes, preferred learning modes, employer, job title,
mailing address, phone number, personal and business areas of
interest, the willingness to participate in a survey, along with
various lifestyle information. This information will be referred
to as user profile data, and is stored on a consumer-owned
portable profile device such as a Flash memory-based
PCMCIA pluggable card. The end user initially enters the
requested data and the non-identifying information is copied to
the metering server 14. That is, the information associated with
the end user is compiled and copied to the metering server 14
without any indication of the identity of the user (for example,
the name and phone number are not included in the
computation). The GUI also allows the user to receive
inquiries, request information and consume information by
viewing, storing, printing, etc. The client system may also be
provided with tools to create content, advertisements, etc. in
the same manner as a publisher/advertiser.
DEDRICK PATENT, 4:4-23:
All of the fields in the GUI relating to consumer variables are
hidden from the consumer. The display of the GUI is based
upon these fields, but the GUI does not display them to the
user except when the user brings up a “profile editor”, as
discussed in more detail below. Thus, the monitoring of
consumer actions and inaction based on these consumer
variables and the updating of user profile data is transparent to
the consumer. In addition, modifications made to the electronic
information to customize it to a particular consumer are also
179

Reference

Disclosure
transparent to the consumer.
DEDRICK PATENT, 4:36-55:
In one embodiment, the software tools provided to the
publisher/advertiser 18 include software tools for embedding
consumer variables within the electronic information. The
embedded consumer variables enable a client activity monitor
and a consumption device to monitor consumer interaction
with the electronic information based on the consumer’ s
interaction with the unit of information currently being
consumed. This interaction includes both inputs by the
consumer and actions which the consumer could have taken
but chose not to. In one implementation, the publisher
advertiser 18 is provided with a GUI which allows the
publisher/advertiser 18 to select certain consumer variables
from a set of consumer variables and associate the selected
variables with specific objects or fields within the electronic
information. For example, the electronic information may
include several option fields from which end users may select.
The publisher/advertiser 18 may associate a color preference
variable with these option fields, thereby indicating to the
client systems 12 to track the color ofthe option field selected
by the end user.
DEDRICK PATENT, 5:1-16:
In one embodiment, each piece of electronic information
received by client system 12 includes a header block which
includes the consumer variables and their related objects or
fields for that piece of electronic information. For example, the
header block of the given piece of electronic information may
include a quality parameter and a cost parameter indicating the
minimum quality the electronic information must be delivered
at the designated cost. Such information may be input by the
publisher/advertiser 18 at the authoring site of the electronic
information. The header block of a given piece of electronic
information may also include an indicator that a color
preference variable is associated with certain option fields. In
addition, default colors for particular fields or objects, or a
default consumption format, such as audio or video, for the
electronic information may also be included in the header
block.
DEDRICK PATENT, 5:52-67:
The client activity monitor 24 tracks the consumer variables
corresponding to the preferences of the end user(s) of client
system 12. When an end user consumes electronic information,
and also possibly interacts with that electronic information,
client activity monitor 24 associates the electronic information
180

Reference

Disclosure
with the appropriate consumer variables and stores this data in
the personal profile database 27. For example, the client
activity monitor 24 tracks the color of fields or objects that are
selected most frequently and least frequently by the end user.
Similarly, the consumption format chosen most frequently and
least frequently by the end user, such as audio or video, is also
tracked and stored in personal profile database 27. In one
embodiment, the consumer variables and corresponding fields
or objects are indicated in a header block received with the
electronic information.
DEDRICK PATENT, 7:28-39:
Data is collected for personal profile database 27 by direct
input from the end user and also by client activity monitor 24
monitoring the end user’s activity. When the end user
consumes a piece of electronic information, each variable (or a
portion of each variable) within the header block for that piece
of electronic information is added to the database for this end
user. For example, if this piece of electronic information is
made available to the end user for consumption in both audio
and video format, and the end user selects the audio format,
then this choice of format selection is stored in personal profile
database 27 for this end user.
DEDRICK PATENT, 7:28-39:
Data is collected for personal profile database 27 by direct
input from the end user and also by client activity monitor 24
monitoring the end user’s activity. When the end user
consumes a piece of electronic information, each variable (or a
portion of each variable) within the header block for that piece
of electronic information is added to the database for this end
user. For example, if this piece of electronic information is
made available to the end user for consumption in both audio
and video format, and the end user selects the audio format,
then this choice of format selection is stored in personal profile
database 27 for this end user.
DEDRICK PATENT, 17:13-26:
The metering server 14 in conjunction with the client activity
monitor 24 of the client system may monitor the end user’s
consumption of electronic advertising information and provide
user profile data to the metering server 14 relating to the end
user. For example, the metering process 36 may monitor the
amount of time an end user spends viewing an electronic
advertisement, or which particular advertisement or page of the
advertisement was of interest to the end user. The metering
process 36 may further monitor what answers were provided
by the user, or paths taken by the user in an interactive model,
181

Reference

U.S. Patent No.
6,374,237 (“REESE”)

Disclosure
along with follow-up requests initiated by the end user in an
interactive model. This information is then forwarded to the
clearinghouse server 20 for compilation.
REESE, 1:22-30:
Search engine servers have been developed to allow a user to
transmit a request from a client to retrieve data. Search engines
rely on a user formulated query to retrieve data. In this case, a
client transmits a request to a search engine server to search
content sites (e.g., other servers) on the Internet for
information based on user-selected “keywords.” The search
engine searches the web and retrieves data that matches the
keywords, then transmits the matching data to the client.
REESE, 1:55-63:
A method and a system for requesting and retrieving
information from distinct web network content sites is
disclosed. The method includes retrieving by a server of a first
set of pre-determined data from said content sites, sending a
request from a client, wherein the request contains the user
profile, and adapting the server, upon receiving the request, to
retrieve a second set of data from the first set of data, wherein
the second set of data matches the request, and delivering the
second set of data to the client.
REESE, 1:64-2:3:
The system of the invention includes a client adapted to send a
request that contains a user profile, and a server adapted to
retrieve a first set of pre-determine data. Upon receiving the
request from the client, the server is adapted to retrieve a
second set of data from the first set of data that substantially
matches the request and deliver the second set of data to the
client.
REESE, 3:33-44:
Next, client 110 initiates a user profile request 100 to matching
server 120. The matching server 120 applies the user profile
request 100 against the pre-determined aggregate data. The
aggregate data that matches the client request is returned to the
client 110 by way of an HTML document. The client 110 is
then instructed to review the retrieved data and may go to
various content sites 130-160 for more information through
links in the HTML document returned to the client or to
request that the entire contents of a particular content site 130160 be delivered to the client 110. Alternatively, the user can
modify the user profile and execute a new search.
REESE, 3:45-58:
The invention contemplates that the matching server 120
works with the client user profile request 100 to pare down the
182

Reference

Disclosure
data delivered to the client. The matching server 120 preselects an aggregate of data that is determined to be the most
relevant to different sets of user profile requests 100. The
matching server 120 does this by searching various content
sites 130, 140, 150, 160 on the Internet or other network. A
user profile request 100 is applied against the matching server
120 aggregate of data like a sieve, and only data matching the
user profile request 100 is returned to the client 110. The
invention contemplates that the matching server 120 need not
match the user profile 100 exactly, but can accommodate a
user’s designated acceptable range of variability, i.e., a quality
factor.
REESE, 3:59-4:5:
FIG. 2 illustrates a flow chart of the invention. In FIG. 2, a
matching server 200 is developed made up of predetermined
data that has been designated desirable to collect. Data might
be designated desirable, for example, by the number of
previous times the data has been accessed by users of a certain
demographic. The matching server 200 organizes the data into
a manageable form. For example, an advertising agency
seeking to target ten different sets of customers would collect
information to target all of the ten different sets of customers.
Certain characteristics would be associated with each of the ten
sets of customers. The database that would be collected and
organized would be an aggregate of data determined by the
advertising agency to be relevant to all of the customers.
REESE, 4:6-21:
Next, in step 210, a user wishing to retrieve information from
the matching server, submits a user profile, preferably in the
form of an algorithm that works with the algorithm the server
used to represent the aggregate of the collected data. In step
220, the client then sends the user profile developed by the
user to the matching server. At step 230, the matching server
performs a search request on its database based on the user
profile. At step 240, the matching server retrieves data from its
database that matches the user profile. At step 250, the
matching server delivers the results to the client. In the
example wherein the matching server is developed by an
advertising agency, profiles from the targeted customers would
be delivered to the matching server, and the aggregate of data
in the matching server would be applied against the desired
profile. Data that matched the submitted profile would be
returned to the client.
REESE, 4:22-34:
Based on the delivered results, the client prompts (step 260)
183

Reference

Disclosure
the user to modify the user profile request. If the user wishes to
modify the user profile request, the client can send the
modified user profile to the matching server to conduct a
further search of the content sites. If the user elects not to
modify the user profile, the user may, in step 270, review the
data and further act on the data by going to individual content
servers 272, 274, or 276, or request that the entire contents of a
server 272, 274, or 276 be delivered to the client through links
returned in the HTML document. Once the user has the
retrieved data, the user can end the session (step 280).
REESE, 4:35-53:
The user profile is intended to focus the retrieved results on
meaningful data. One type of user profile is related to the
demographics of the user. For example, the user profile might
include the area code, zip code, state, sex, and age of a user.
With such a profile, the matching server would retrieve data to
the client related to the client’s demographics. For example, if
the user were interested in current events in the state of
Oregon, the matching server would retrieve data and compile
an aggregate database relating to current events pertinent to the
user’s age and area, e.g., Portland. Similarly, if the user sought
information regarding retail purchases, the matching server
would retrieve data relevant to the user’s demographics. A
demographics user profile is also very effective for advertisers
that wish to advertise their goods or services on the matching
server so that specific advertisements can be targeted at user’s
with specific user profile demographics. Other user profiles
include, but are not limited to, areas of interest, business,
politics, religion, education, etc.
REESE, 5:43-54:
FIG. 6 illustrates a user profile form 600 that can be displayed
by the User-Agent (e.g., browser) to allow a user to complete a
specific user profile that the matching server will accept to
refine search requests to more meaningful data. The form 600
used in FIG. 6 is displayed on the client and allows the user to
quickly and easily enter and modify the user profile. FIG. 6
presents a user profile form 600 relating to a user profile of
demographics. The document form 600 may be in standard
HTML text. The form 600 includes a document title and a
document URL 620. The document title 610 specifies that the
form is a user profile form. The document URL 620 specifies
the query string.
REESE, 8:25-53:
Thus far, the invention is focused on a user-created user
profile. The invention also contemplates that the user profile
184

Reference

U.S. Patent No.
7,072,849 (“FILEPP”)

Disclosure
may be constructed by the client based on the user’s search
habits. In other words, an artificial intelligence system may be
created to develop a user profile. In the same way that a system
is trained to be associative with regard to matching profile
elements, the entire profile may be trained based on a user’s
search habits. For instance, a user profile that relates to
demographics can be trained by recognizing user habits
relating to demographics. Where a user conducts searches
focusing on the Portland area of Oregon, the user profile is
trained to recognize the City of Portland, Oregon as a profile
criteria. Similarly, if the user conducts searches of information
for males of a certain age group or income, the user profile will
be trained to recognize these criteria. Once again, the invention
contemplates that the user profile be constructed automatically
with known artificial intelligence systems. Similarly, the
matching server would monitor search requests and create
aggregate data based on such search requests to compare
against the user profile. Such automatic profile/matching
server is ideal for advertisers that want to target specific
advertisements at specific profiles. For instance, an advertising
agency matching server can construct an aggregate
advertisement database triggered by demographics. The
matching server could then deliver target local and/or national
advertisements to particular user profiles. These
advertisements can be designated to be returned continuously
while a-user is logged on to the network.
See, e.g., FILEPP, 3:44-67:
Also in preferred form, the method includes step for
maintaining an advertising object identification queue, and an
advertising object store that are replenished based on
predetermined criteria as advertising is called for association
and presentation with applications. In accordance with the
method, as applications are executed at the reception system,
the application objects provide generalized calls for
advertising. The application calls for advertising are
subsequently forwarded to the reception system advertising
queue management facility which, in turn supplies an
identification of advertising who’s selection has been
individualized to the user based on, as noted, the user’s prior
interaction history with the service, demographics and local.
Thereafter, the object identification for the advertising is
passed to the object store to determine if the object is available
at the reception system. In preferred fonn, ifthe advertising
object is not available at the reception system, a sequence of
alternative advertising object identifications can be provided
185

Reference

Disclosure
which if also are unavailable at the reception system will
resulting in an advertising object being requested from the
network. In this way, advertising of interest can be targeted to
the user and secured in time-efficient manner to increase the
likelihood of user interest and avoid service distraction.
FILEPP, 10:7-27:
Individualized queues of advertising object ids are constructed
based upon data collected on the partitioned applications that
were accessed by a user, and upon events the user generated in
response to applications. The data are collected and reported
by RS 400 to a data collection co-application in file server 205
for later transmission to business system 130. In addition to
application access and use characteristics, a variety of other
parameters, such as user demographics or postal ZIP code,
may be used as targeting criteria. From such data, queues of
advertising object ids are constructed that are targeted to either
individual users or to sets of users who fall into certain groups
according to such parameters. Stated otherwise, the advertising
presented is individualized to the respective users based on
characterizations of the respective users as defined by the
interaction history with the service and such other information
as user demographics and locale. As will be appreciated by
those skilled in the art, conventional marketing analysis
techniques can be employed to establish the user
characterizations based on the collected application usage data
above noted and other information.
FILEPP, 22:22-44:
Activation of the Path command accesses the user’s list of preselected keywords without their display, and permits the user
to step through the list viewing the respective applications by
repeatedly invoking the Path command. As will be
appreciated, the user can set a priority for selecting keywords
and viewing their associated applications by virtue of where on
the list the user places the keywords. More specifically, if the
user has several application of particular interest; e.g., news,
weather, etc., the user can place them at the top of the list, and
quickly step through them with the Path command. Further, the
user can view and randomly access the keywords of his list
with the Viewpath operation noted above. On activation of
Viewpath, the user’s Path keywords are displayed and the user
can cursor through them in a conventional manner to select a
desired one. Further, the user can amend the list as desired by
changing the keywords on the list and/or adjusting their
relative position. This is readily accomplished by entering the
amendments to the list presented at the screen 414 with a series
186

Reference

Disclosure
of amendment options presented in a conventional fashion
with the list. As noted, the list may be personally selected by
the user in the manner described, or created as a default by
network 10.
FILEPP, 23:47-57:
Selectors are used to dynamically link and load other objects
such as PEOs or other PDOs based upon parameters that they
are passed when they are called. Such parameters are specified
in call segments or selector segments. This feature enables RS
400 to conditionally deliver information to the user base upon
predetermined parameters, such as his personal demographics
or locale. For example, the parameters specified may be the
transaction codes required to retrieve the user’s age, sex, and
personal interest codes from records contained in user profiles
stored at the switch/file server layer 200.
FILEPP, 19:66-20:3:
In preferred fonn, where the user has not selected a list of
personalized keywords, a default set is provided which
includes a predetermined list and associated applications
deemed by network 10 as likely to be of interest to the user.
FILEPP, 21:64-67:
A Log function 110 stores records of the activities of Decision
Agent 14. These records may be consulted later, for example,
by a Demand Agent 16 that is calculating historical demand
for a product.
FILEPP, 22:22-44:
Activation of the Path command accesses the user’s list of preselected keywords without their display, and permits the user
to step through the list viewing the respective applications by
repeatedly invoking the Path command. As will be
appreciated, the user can set a priority for selecting keywords
and viewing their associated applications by virtue of where on
the list the user places the keywords. More specifically, if the
user has several application of particular interest; e.g., news,
weather, etc., the user can place them at the top of the list, and
quickly step through them with the Path command. Further, the
user can view and randomly access the keywords of his list
with the Viewpath operation noted above. On activation of
Viewpath, the user’s Path keywords are displayed and the user
can cursor through them in a conventional manner to select a
desired one. Further, the user can amend the list as desired by
changing the keywords on the list and/or adjusting their
relative position. This is readily accomplished by entering the
amendments to the list presented at the screen 414 with a series
of amendment options presented in a conventional fashion
187

Reference

Disclosure
with the list. As noted, the list may be personally selected by
the user in the manner described, or created as a default by
network 10.
FILEPP, 33:16-27:
In accordance with the method of the present invention, Ad
manager 442 is invoked by object interpreter 435 to return the
object id of the next available advertisement to be displayed.
Ad manager 442 maintains a queue of advertising object id’s
targeted to the specific user currently accessing interactive
network 10. Advertising objects are pre-fetched from
interactive system 10 from a personalized queue of advertising
ids that is constructed using data previously collected from
user generated events and/or reports of objects used in the
building of pages or windows, compiled by data collection
manager 466 and transmitted to interactive system 10.
FILEPP, 34:14-24:
The data collection events that are to be reported during the
user’s session are sensitized during the logon process. The
logon response message carries a data collection indicator with
bit flags set to “on” for the events to be reported. These bit
flags are enabled (on) or disabled (off) for each user based on
information contained in the user’s profile stored and sent from
high function host 110. A user’s data collection indicator is
valid for the duration of his session. The type of events to be
reported can be changed at will in the host data collection
application. However, such changes will affect only users who
logon after the change.
FILEPP, 34:25-39:
Data collection manager 441 gathers information concerning a
user’s individual system usage characteristics. The types of
informational services accessed, transactions processed, time
information between various events, and the like are collected
by data collection manager 441, which compiles the
information into message packets (not shown). The message
packets are sent to network 10 via object/communication
manager interface 443 and link communications manager 444.
Message packets are then stored by high function host 110 and
sent to an offline processing facility for processing. The
characteristics of users are ultimately used as a means to select
or target various display objects, such as advertising objects, to
be sent to particular users based on consumer marketing
strategies, or the like, and for system optimization.
FILEPP, 35:9-40:
Data collection manager 441 is invoked by object interpreter
435 and keyboard manger 434 to keep records about what
188

Reference

Disclosure
objects a user has obtained (and, if a presentation data segment
530 is present, seen) and what actions users have taken (e.g.
“NEXT,” “BACK,” “LOOK,” etc.) The data collection events
that are to be reported during the user’s session are sensitized
during the logon process. The logon response message carries
a data collection indicator with bit flags set to “on” for the
events to be reported. These bit flags are enabled (on) or
disabled (off) for each user based on information contained in
the user’s profile stored and sent from high function host 110.
A user’s data collection indicator is valid for the duration of
his session. The type of events to be reported can be changed
at will in the host data collection application. However, such
changes will affect only users who logon after the change.
Data collection manager 441 gathers information concerning a
user’s individual system usage characteristics. The types of
informational services accessed, transactions processed, time
information between various events, and the like are collected
by data collection manager 441, which compiles the
information into message packets (not shown). The message
packets are sent to network 10 via object/ communication
manager interface 443 and link communications manager 444.
Message packets are then stored by high function host 110 and
sent to an offline processing facility for processing. The
characteristics of users are ultimately used as a means to select
or target various display objects, such as advertising objects, to
be sent to particular users based on consumer marketing
strategies, or the like, and for system optimization.
FILEPP, Fig. 2:

U.S. Patent No.
5,761,662 (“DASAN”)

See, e.g., DASAN, 1:10-15:
The present invention relates to information retrieval. More
specifically. the present invention relates to a client server
189

Reference

Disclosure
model for information retrieval based upon a userdefined profile, for example, for the generation of an “electronic” newspaper which contains information of interest to a
particular user.
DASAN, 2:32-45:
The user-defined profile can include source identifications and
associated search terms wherein the first application scans in
the information (e.g. a raw news source. USENet newsgroup or
other resource) for sources identified by the source
identifications. A first set of files in the sources containing the
associated search terms may then be identified and the first
application program places the first set of files into the subset
of the information. for creation of the personalized
information-the newspaper. The source identifications and
associated search terms from the user-defined profile can be
stored by topic wherein the subset is displayed to the user
arranged by topic.
DASAN, Fig. 4:

Another Search
Engine? Hotwired
Introduces Hotbot,
Powered By Inktomi,
PR Newswire, May 20,
1996 (“ANOTHER
SEARCH ENGINE”)

See, e.g., ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotWired Ventures, a
premier Internet media company, today introduced HotBot
(www.hotbot.com), a unique search engine that indexes and searches
every word on the World Wide Web. Powered by Inktomi's advanced
parallel-processing engine, HotBot will change the way people search
for and retrieve information on the Internet.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “’The rules of the search engine game
have changed. Internet users thought they’d get what they needed from
traditional search engines, but they found the result to be thin on
content, rigid in context, and often totally irrelevant,’ said Andrew
Anker, president and CEO of HotWired Ventures. ‘Our quest to find a
better search engine led us to Inktomi. By combining the best
technology, the most relevant searches, and an innovative interface,
we created HotBot -- a bigger, better, smarter way to search the
Web.’”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “Most search engines aren’t keeping
190

Reference

Development of the
Coder System: A
Testbed for Artificial
Intelligence Methods in
Information Retrieval
(“Fox”)

Disclosure
up with the tremendous growth of the Web. HotBot’s underlying
Inktomi engine indexes more than 50 million full-text Web documents
plus Usenet and mailing-list archives, and its scalable architecture can
match the growth of the Web.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot includes a number of unique
features. Users can get the most current information quickly,
efficiently view and use that information, and interact with the search
engine in a personal manner. Daily Updates: The HotBot spider crawls
the Web every day, offering users the most current information.
Reliable and Fast: HotBot's fault-tolerant engine reliably delivers
query results in seconds, without frequent downtime. Convenient
Previews: HotBot allows users to preview documents without leaving
the search page, reducing search time. Personal Searching: The
HotBot interface allows users to personalize their search engine to fit
their own surfing style.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot identifies, customizes, and
ranks millions of Web documents using an algorithm developed by a
team of the world's leading experts in information retrieval. HotBot
recognizes that users desire varying levels of information detail, so it
allows users to control the amount and type of information searched.
The computing power available to HotBot enables the user to define a
search query using a wide range of criteria in a way that is not possible
with more traditional search engines.”
See, e.g., FOX, p. 351:

FOX, p. 352:
191

Reference

Disclosure
All user interaction is through the user interface manager.
Special commands for analysis or retrieval can be given and
are handled by the command parser. A report expert can cause
display or filing of results. Explanations are based on the
current user and on the blackboard state. Browsing is possible
of both the document data base and the lexicon. The user
model builder updates the user model base as a result of events
on the blackboard.
FOX, p. 352:
Retrieval is prompted by an explicit (or default, from the user
model base) query. User model building, problem state
transformation, and building of the problem description all
proceed. When some terms are available, the lexicon can be
accessed by a term expander to obtain other related terms that
can be browsed or automatically used to help construct a
query. Eventually a p-norm or other query is constructed, a
search is made, and a report is prepared for the user.
FOX, p. 359:
5.4. User interaction and information gathering
At the end of Section 3.1, work on user modeling was briefly
surveyed. The findings of Daniels, Brooks, and Belkin, (751 fit
in nicely with the design of CODER and have informed our
approach to user interaction. The long-term plan is to use the
knowledge structures and rules they uncover in their study of
user-intermediary dialogues, perhaps slightly adapted to our
particular environment and collection, as a foundation for the
user model data base and builder; the problem state and
problem description builders; the report, browsing, and
explanation experts; and the interface manager.
FOX, p. 360:

192

Reference

Disclosure

Hofferer, Knaus, and
Winiwarter, An
Evolutionary Approach

FOX, p. 360:
In the current implementation, background information as
listed in part B.1 of Fig. 10 is gathered from users. Some initial
work on the user model builder has taken place, and
more is scheduled through the middle of 1987. At present, all
data collected are logged.
Problem state and description indicators are also requested, as
shown in parts B.2 and B.3 of Fig. 10, and will later be
handled by the appropriate builder experts (shown at the top of
Fig. 4).
Finally, to gauge the user’s feeling toward the system and its
operation, evaluation questions are asked, as indicated in menu
item A.2.c of Figure 10. With this feedback, the system could
be tuned as a whole and to the needs of individual users, and
should hopefully be shown to more effectively aid end user
searching than would conventional
approaches.
See e.g., HOFFERER, p. 1 (“CIFS distils e-mails from the input stream
depending on the user’s interests and evaluation judgment which are
used to rank e-mail information.”); id. (“These user profiles typically
193

Reference
to Intelligent
Information Filtering
(1994) (“HOFFERER”)

Morita and Shinoda,
Information Filtering
Based on User
Behavior Analysis and
Best Match Text
Retrieval (“MORITA”)

U.S. Patent Nos.
5,948,061 (“MERRIMAN
I”) and 7,844,488
(“MERRIMAN II”)

Disclosure
describe long-term concerns and individually depend on the fact how
the user reacts on an incoming stream of information. . . . CIFS is a
two step learning system. In the first step, the user may specify a
catalogue of relevant topics (interest-domains). By rating the
keywords of each incoming e-mail and assigning them to one or more
interest-domains, the system creates a polarity profile for each domain
out of a set of ratings. . .”); id., Section 4.1 (“The filter is composed of
the following modules: . . . Pre-Filter and Indexer/Parser . . .
Knowledge Base. The knowledge base contains the semantic
representation of the user profiles which is applied to the assessment
of new e-mails. The internal structure consists of frames describing
the individual user interests. Their dynamical adaptation is induced by
the e-mail agents of the filter component. Monitor. Records a user’s
behavior, that is, his/her reaction to incoming e-mails, e.g. deleting,
forwarding, storing, replying, printing. Therefore, the monitor
provides a feedback mechanism, measuring how efficiently the
recording of usage patterns predicts current user behavior.”); id.,
Section 4.2 (“Monitoring of user reaction. Reactions or sequences of
reactions, looking over the user’s shoulder result in acceptance
measure as positive (store, forward, print, reply), neutral (view) and
negative actions (delete).”).
See e.g., MORITA, Introduction (“We propose a profile acquisition and
user feedback technique to accumulate a user’s preference for
information, based on user behavior monitoring, as well as an
information filtering technique using the acquired profile.”); id.,
Section 3.2 (“we can easily assume that articles which took
considerable amount of time to read can be treated as potentially
interesting articles. If we can determine whether a reader is interested
in an article or not by measuring the time to read it, we might be able
to capture the readers profile automatically.”); id., Section 5: “In these
approach, it is proposed that information filtering system is told of
users preference in a form of ‘user model.’ Then, upon arrival of an
incoming information, the information is semantically analyzed and
checked against the user model if the item fit the user’s needs.”).
See, e.g., MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN
MERRIMAN II), 2:59-3:4:
The basic architecture of the network 10 comprises at least one
affiliate web site 12, an advertisement (ad) server web site 19
and one or more individual advertiser’s web sites 18. Affiliates
are one or more entities that generally for a fee contract with
the entity providing the advertisement server permit third party
advertisements to be displayed on their web sites. When a user
using a browser accesses or “visits” a web site of an affiliate,
an advertisement provided by the advertisement server 19 will
be superimposed on the display of the affiliate’s web page
194

Reference

Disclosure
displayed by the user’s browser. Examples of appropriate
affiliates include locator services, service providers, and
entities that have popular web sites such as museums, movie
studios, etc.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II), 3:523:
The basic operation of the system is as follows in the preferred
embodiment. When a user browsing on the Internet accesses
an affiliate’s web site 12, the user’s browser generates an
HTTP message 20 to get the information for the desired web
page. The affiliate’s web site in response to the message 20
transmits one or more messages back 22 containing the
information to be displayed by the user’s browser. In addition,
an advertising server process 19 will provide additional
information comprising one or more objects such as banner
advertisements to be displayed with the information provided
from the affiliate web site. Normally, the computers supporting
the browser, the affiliate web site and the advertising server
process will be at entirely different nodes on the Internet. Upon
clicking through or otherwise selecting the advertisement
object, which may be an image such as an advertisement
banner, an icon, or a video or an audio clip, the browser ends
up being connected to the advertiser’s server or web site 18 for
that advertisement object.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
3:24-63:
In FIG. 1, a user operates a web browser, such as Netscape or
Microsoft Internet Explorer, on a computer or PDA or other
Internet capable device 16 to generate through the hypertext
transfer protocol (HTTP) 14 a request 20 to any one of
preferably a plurality of affiliate web sites 12. The affiliate
web site sends one or more messages back 22 using the same
protocol. Those messages 22 preferably contain all of the
information available at the particular web site 12 for the
requested page to be displayed by the user’s browser 16 except
for one or more advertising objects such as banner
advertisements. These objects preferably do not reside on the
affiliate’s web server. Instead, the affiliate’s web server sends
back a link including an IP address for a node running an
advertiser server process 19 as well as information about the
page on which the advertisement will be displayed. The link by
way of example may be a hypertext markup language (HTML)
<img> tag, referring to, for example, an inline image such as a
banner. The user’s browser 16 then transmits a message 23
using the received IP address to access such an object
195

Reference

Disclosure
indicated by the HTML tag from the advertisement server 19.
Included in each message 23 typically to the advertising server
19 are: the user’s IP address, (ii) a cookie if the browser 16 is
cookie enabled and stores cookie information, (iii) a substring
key indicating the page in which the advertisement to be
provided from the server is to be embedded, and (iv) MIME
header information indicating the browser type and version,
the operating system of the computer on which the browser is
operating and the proxy server type. Upon receiving the
request in the message 23, the advertising server process 19
determines which advertisement or other object to provide to
user’s browser and transmits the messages 24 containing the
object such as a banner advertisement to the user’s browser 16
using the HTTP protocol. Preferably contained within the
HTTP message is a unique identifier for the advertiser’s web
page appropriate for the advertisement. That advertisement
object is then displayed on the image created by the web user’s
browser as a composite of the received affiliate’s web page
plus the object transmitted back by the advertising web server.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
5:50-64:
If the user is an existing user, the ad server 19 obtains from a
database all of the information known about the user including
the user’s geographic location, the domain type (commercial
educational, governmental, the Internet service provided), the
organization type where the user works (for example a SIC
code), the company size, the number of employees in that
company, the particular types of advertisements that the user
has clicked on by SIC or other appropriate coding and the
number of times that the user has been exposed to each
advertisement currently in the system as described in FIG. 3A.
Also, the relative time of day for the user is calculated based
upon either the user’s country code or the user’s IP access
provider or the location of their domain.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
7:52-8:5:
Alternatively, a reverse form of look up can be used
independent of people accessing the network. When a domain
is discovered, the server will check common DNS names for
the name, such as those starting with “vvvvw” and “ftp”.
These resolve to IP addresses in most cases. From the IP
addresses, the network number can be extracted and if the
network does not yet have a domain name associated with the
network number or address, the new domain associated with
196

Reference

U.S. Patent No
5,886,683
(“TOGNAZZINNI”)

Disclosure
the network. A reverse domain name look up (A Whois
lookup) will then usually provide the name, address and phone
number of the organization, thereby providing the geographic
location and the time zone of the network. Once the domain
name is acquired, the server will determine whether the
domain is an educational, military, governmental network and
for non-U.S. based networks what country the network is
located in through the extension.
MERRIMAN I (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II), Fig.
1:

MERRIMAN II (AND CORRESPONDING DISCLOSURE IN MERRIMAN II),
9:38-41:
2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting an advertisement
based upon stored information about said user node comprises
selecting an advertisement based upon a prior content request
sent from said user node to an affiliate node.
See, e.g., TOGNAZZINI, 16:16-43:
FIG. 15 illustrates a typical electronic newspaper display. The
invention also applies to data search engine displays. Here, a
number of articles 1507, 1511, 1515 and 1519 along with their
associated titles 1505, 1509, 1513 and 1517 are displayed in
views within a window 1501. Generally a major headline 1503
is also displayed along with a selection of advertising material
1521. Because the information provider does not know what
subjects interest the user, the information provider presents a
mixture of articles. Here the “New Chemical Reaction” article
197