Brite Smart Corp. v. Google Inc.
Filing
1
COMPLAINT for Patent Infringement against Google Inc. ( Filing fee $ 400 receipt number 0540-4739057.), filed by Brite Smart Corp.. (Attachments: #1 Exhibit A, #2 Exhibit B, #3 Exhibit C, #4 Exhibit D, #5 Civil Cover Sheet)(Davis, Stafford)
EXHIBIT D
United States Patent No. 8,671,057
111111
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
US008671057Bl
(54)
United States Patent
(10)
Zuili
c12)
(45)
METHOD AND SYSTEM TO DETECT
INVALID AND FRAUDULENT IMPRESSIONS
AND CLICKS IN WEB-BASED
ADVERTISEMENT SCHEMES
(75)
Inventor:
(73)
( *)
Notice:
(21)
Appl. No.: 12/654,616
(56)
US 8,671,057 Bl
Mar.11,2014
References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
6,452,609 B1
2003/0233482 A1
*
*
9/2002 Katinsky eta!. .............. 715/716
12/2003 Skrepetos ..................... 709/250
Assignee: Britesmart Corp., Boca Raton, FL (US)
(22)
Filed:
Patrick Zuili, Boca Raton, FL (US)
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this
patent is extended or adjusted under 35
U.S.C. 154(b) by 1111 days.
Dec. 24, 2009
(60)
Division of application No. 11/781,716, filed on Jul.
23, 2007, now Pat. No. 7,953,667, which is a
continuation-in-part of application No. 10/360,688,
filed on Feb. 7, 2003, now Pat. No. 7,249,104.
(51)
Int. Cl.
G06F 21100
(2013.01)
G06Q20/00
(2012.01)
U.S. Cl.
USPC . ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... .. 705/50
Field of Classification Search
USPC .............. 705/50, 16, 21, 59, 71; 380/44, 262,
380/278, 279
See application file for complete search history.
(58)
Primary Examiner- Dante Ravetti
(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm- John R. Kasha; Kelly L.
Kasha; Kasha Law LLC
(57)
Related U.S. Application Data
(52)
* cited by examiner
ABSTRACT
This invention is related to web-traffic and used in online
advertising including interactive TV, cellular telephone or
Personal Digital Assistant PDA. It discloses a system to detect
invalid and fraudulent impressions and clicks and method of
pay-per-click (when advertisers pay upon users actually
clicking) and pay-per-impression (when advertisers pay
based on number of views) advertising arrangements, which
periodically generates a code associated with the searchengine users. This code, preferably in the form of a serial
number, is compared to the user of the website, such that by
observing a metric like the number of clicks for a given period
of time, be it a short time or a longer period, such as a day or
a week, the system can automatically determine if certain
clicks are illegitimate. This allows the search engine company
to fairly invoice the merchants, thereby preventing fraudulent
overuse.
12 Claims, 2 Drawing Sheets
PAY PER CLICK
120
PAY PER CLICK
COMPANY
.-----I
30
122
WEBSITE
VERIFY THAT THE SERIAL NUMBER
IS UNIQUE
SEARCH
!02--......
110
LINK
SEARCH ENGINE GET
COOKIE SERIAL NUMBER
LOCATED ON END
USER COMPUTER
AND ADD IT TO
THE LINK. XML
TECHNOLOGY PERMIT
TO PASS THRU
FIREWALL
SEARCH ENGINE WRITE
A SERIAL NUMBER
ON THE COOKIE VIA
ACTIVEX, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT,
... TECHNOLOGY BASED ON
END USER GUID, OR I AND
NETWORK CARTOGRAPHY
GENERATED PERIODICALLY
FOR EACH USER ON EACH
SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS
---'--,---106
D
1+---------'
LC::::====-.1
~
~ALL
U.S. Patent
Mar.11,2014
US 8,671,057 Bl
Sheet 1 of2
INVOICE TO ADVERTISER'S WEBSITE
PAY PER CLICK
PAY PER CLICK
COMPA,_N_Y_--i
120
30
122
WEBSITE
VERIFY THAT THE SERIAL NUMBER
IS UNIQUE
SEARCH ENGINE
102~
~--
104
SEARCH ENGINE
RESULT WITH PAY PER
CLICK LINK DIFFERENT
FOR EACH USER
~
~
SEARCH ENGINE WRITE
A SERIAL NUMBER
ON THE COOKIE VIA
ACTIVEX, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT,
... TECHNOLOGY BASED ON
END USER GUID, OR I AND
NETWORK CARTOGRAPHY
GENERATED PERIODICALLY
FOR EACH USER ON EACH
SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS
(Q)
110
LINK
SEARCH ENGINE GET
COOKIE SERIAL NUMBER
LOCATED ON END
USER COMPUTER
AND ADD IT TO
THE LINK. XML
TECHNOLOGY PERMIT
TO PASS THRU
FIREWALL
106
FIREWALL
FIG. 1
0
U.S. Patent
Mar.11,2014
Sheet 2 of2
200
210
USER DEVICE
\.
WEB BROWSER
2~0
TOOLBAR
23 0~
'-2.
.._
-LS::'
j..--240
CODE
STORAGE
_....
250./
FIG. 2
NETWORK
(IP, MAC, ETC)
US 8,671,057 Bl
US 8,671,057 Bl
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METHOD AND SYSTEM TO DETECT
INVALID AND FRAUDULENT IMPRESSIONS
AND CLICKS IN WEB-BASED
ADVERTISEMENT SCHEMES
fact, the method in 11/244,467 differs from the present invention because it relies on computing probabilities of occurrences of click events.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/234,476 ("Click fraud
resistant learning of click through rate"): Although this application talks about computing click through rate, the method
employed is different and it does not involve the generation of
two codes on the server side and the concatenation of those
codes as recited in the main claim of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,043,471: Although this patent mentions
click fraud detection, it does not explain how click fraud is
detected. Therefore, it does not disclose many elements of the
main claim of the present invention, including the generation
of two codes on the server side and the concatenation of those
codes.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,020,622 and PCT International Publication
Number WO 02/091225 A3: Each of these publications disclose the tracking of user activity on the Web including interactions with Web pages and click-throughnavigation to select
Web sites where purchases can be executed. It does not disclose the generation of two codes on the server side and the
concatenation of those codes as recited in the main claim of
the present invention. Indeed, each of the systems of these
prior art publications does not apply to the same context as
that of the present invention. Both these prior arts apply to a
clearing-house and affiliate network. The relation between
the clearing-house and the affiliates allow users' activities to
be tracked. In contrast, the present invention applies to a
search engine and the web sites of advertisers. In that context,
the search engine cam1ot track the activities of users while
they access the advertisers' web sites.
V.Anupam,A. Mayer, K. Nissim, B. Pinkas, andM. Reiter,
On the Security of Pay-Per-Click and Other Web Advertising
Schemes. In Proceedings of the S'h International Conference
on World Wide Web, pages 1091-1100, 1999: This paper
describes the detection and prevention of an attack on a payper-click network using a referrer and JavaScript. It does not,
however, disclose the generation of two codes on a server and
the concatenation of those codes as recited in the main claim
of the present invention.
C. Blnndo and S. Cimato, SAWM: A Tool for Secure and
Authenticated Web Metering. In Proceedings of the 14th
ACM SEKE International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, pages 641-648, 2002:
Although this paper relates to click fraud detection, it does not
disclose the generation of two codes on a server and the
concatenation of those codes as recited in the main claim of
the present invention. Rather, it uses a system involving
encryption with a secret key and a plug-in that executes on the
client side.
Jakobsson, P. MacKenzie, and J. Stem. Secure and Lightweight Advertising on the Web. In Proceedings of the 8th
International Conference on World Wide Web, pages 11011109, 1999: This paper does not disclose the generation of a
second code and the concatenation to a previously generated
code as recited in the main claim of the present invention.
Rather, it discloses the use of electronic coupons.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED
APPLICATION
This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 11/781,715, filed Jul. 23,2007, which is
a continuation in part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.
10/360,688, filed Feb. 7, 2003, U.S. Pat. No. 7,249,104.
10
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
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This invention relates generally to network computing of
the type which occurs over the Internet and World Wide Web,
for example, and, more particularly, to a method of protecting
the providers of pay-per-click services from multiple illegitimate usages.
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Over the last few years in particular, the capabilities of the
Internet have grown dramatically, with the introduction of
new protocols (i.e., XML), advanced browsers, electronic
commerce capabilities, and other features.
Numerous commercial enterprises are now attempting to
somehow profit through this new infrastructure, in many
cases by providing services that attach a smaller incremental
monetary value to a particular transaction.
One such type of capability is the pay-per-click (sometimes including pay-per-impression) search engine popularized by Google Inc. and other companies. In accordance with
such a capability, a user goes to a search engine, and inputs the
name of goods or services as keywords that they would like
the search engine to find. Various providers of goods and
services register their websites with the search engine and
these are provided to the user in a list which is prioritized by
the level of compensation which the merchant will give the
pay-per-click or pay-per-impression company if the user is
routed to their site. For example, using such a system, if a user
types in the keyword "binoculars," the pay-per-click or payper-impression system might return five potential links or
bam1ers, with the most prominent one being associated with
that supplier ofbinoculars which will compensate for a penny
or a few cents more than the links/banners presented below.
One problem with existing systems, is that a user may
cause an undesirable level of expenditure on the part of the
merchant by over-clicking on a particular link. In some cases,
it has been known that some users have done this simply for
the purpose of undermining a particular provider or competitor. Since the existing systems have no way of knowing
whether a link through is legitimate or bogus, the provider of
the goods/services winds up having to pay the pay-per-click
provider excess sums, with the fraudulent perpetrator remaining nn-reprimanded. Similarly in pay-per-impression systems, the fraudster would just keep searching for the same
keyword so as to have many unnecessary impressions. These
fraudulent impressions could adversely impact the competitor's finances.
Search has revealed the following related art.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/244,467 ("Pay-perclick Fraud Protection"): The method described in this application is different because it does not disclose the generation
of two codes on the server side and the concatenation of those
codes as recited in the main claim of the present invention. In
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SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
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This invention describes pay-per-click and pay-per-impression arrangements periodically generating a code associated with the search-engine users. This code, preferably in the
form of a number which could be encrypted or in clear, is
compared to the user of the website, such that by observing a
metric like the number of clicks for a given period of time, be
it a short time or a longer period, such as a day or a week, the
US 8,671,057 Bl
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system can automatically determine if certain clicks are illegitimate. This allows the pay-per-click company to fairly
invoice the merchants, thereby preventing fraudulent over
use, and also identifY which networks the fraudulent users
use.
The code could be stored via ActiveX, Java, JavaScript,
browser toolbar, or any other type of technology based within
the end-user graphical user interface device (for example, a
web browser like Microsoft Internet Explorer). For example,
the browser tool bar can intercept the click made on a link and
make appropriate modifications to the request being made to
the search engine. The toolbar can use technologies like
ActiveX and JavaScript. Such toolbars already exist for
browsers like Internet Explorer. Also, toolbars could be of
various types like P2P toolbar, remote-controlled toolbar and
P2P centralized toolbar. The modifications to the code could
include adding timestamp, identity information like MAC
address of the device, other MAC addresses in the subnet of
the device or any changes made to the MAC addresses.
In addition, or as an alternative, network cartography may
be generated periodically for each user based upon their use
of the search engine 102. The network cartography could
include the user device's IP and MAC address or the network
route information between the device and the pay-per-click
system. Network cartography is a general term that describes
the output of three sets of commands: trace route, ping and
reverse DNS. Network cartography provides information
about the nature of the network such as routers' location and
speed of the packets to travel the path.
FIG. 2 illustrates various components in a user device 200.
The user device 200 could be a user desktop, laptop, PDA,
smart phone, phone with Internet capabilities, interactive TV
or other devices capable of connecting to the Internet. In one
of the embodiments the user device 200 contains a web
browser 210 that is capable of connecting and browsing websites and search engines. Example of a web browser is
Microsoft Internet Explorer. The web browser 210 can contain a tool bar 220 that can add to the functionality of the
browser. For example, the toolbar 220 can provide direct
interface to a search engine whereby the searches could be
performed directly. The toolbar 220 can also intercept any
request made by the browser and perform additional processing on the request. The user device 200 also comprises of
storage 230 and a network 250. The storage 230 could be used
by the browser 210 and toolbar 220 to store code 240.
When the user clicks on a link within the browser 210, the
code 240 with information like network cartography, timestamps and number of previous clicks, will be sent to the
search engine 102 and will be interpreted by the pay-per-click
system 120 to determine various parameters like the frequency of clicks from that user or device, interval between
clicks etc. These parameters can be layered on top of each
other with each layer forming a separate fraud discovery
criteria and hence could be used to determine the fraudulent
clicks. Information about users, devices and fraudulent clicks
could be shared with the merchants and also published in a
public or private directory offraudsters. The actual billing to
the merchants would be done by consideration of all these
parameters by both the parties.
This method is also effective in identifYing competitor
fraud, where merchants employ humans or machines to cause
unnecessary clicks or impressions on a competitor's link, thus
resulting in excessive billing. Using the method described
previously, the code could be installed within a merchant's
computing environment by the pay-per-click system. This
code could then be used to determine if that merchant is doing
fraud with another merchant by identifYing network, MAC
addresses, and subnet mapping. The code could also be
allowed to make appropriate checks during the logon process
of the merchant's back-office device.
Although the encoded number is shown being written to a
floppy disk 106, again, it will be appreciated by those of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
So that the manner in which the above recited features of
the present invention can be understood in detail, a more
particular description of the invention, briefly summarized
above, may be had by reference to embodiments, some of
which are illustrated in the appended drawings. It is to be
noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate only
typical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to
be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may
admit to other equally effective embodiments.
FIG. 1 is a diagram which illustrates a per-per-click system
incorporating a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram which illustrates the various components of a user device that interacts with the search engine.
While the invention is described herein by way of example
using several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those
skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is not
limited to the embodiments of drawing or drawings
described. It should be understood that the drawings and
detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the
invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary,
the invention is to cover all modification, equivalents and
alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present
invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings
used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not
meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the
claims. As used throughout this application, the word "may"
is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must).
Similarly, the words "include," "including," and "includes"
mean including, but not limited to. Further, the word "a"
means "at least one", and the word "plurality" means one or
more, unless otherwise mentioned.
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Reference is made to FIG. 1 which illustrates a typical
configuration associated with a pay-per-click implementation. It is noted that although the diagram includes certain
interconnected graphical blocks, these are not taken to mean
"hardware" or "software," but may include any combination
of hardware/software necessary to implement a particular
function. In addition, although lines are drawn between the
various components, this is not meant to imply that they are
necessarily implemented in close proximity to one another,
since in many cases these capabilities will be remote.
The search engine 102 provides a result along path 104
which is indicative of a link associated with different users.
Engine 102 may be any existing or yet-to-be-developed system, including Findwhat.com, Google's Adwords, Yahoo,
Looksmart, Kanoodle, Msn, Ask.com, and so forth.
In addition to the result generated along path 104, according to this invention, the search engine generates a code,
preferably in the form of a number, utilizing a cookie. The
number could be a serial number, a globally unique identifier
(GUID) or a pseudo-random number. This number could be
generated using an algorithm like a pseudo-random number
generator, a GUID generator, an encoding technique like
base64 and an encryption algorithm.
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US 8,671,057 Bl
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skilled in the art that any type of storage capability, such as a
forming a group of a plurality of codes comprising at least
flash memory, cached memory, a hard disk, a compact disc
said second code and said first code.
(CD), a digital versatile disc (DVD) and so forth may alter3. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
natively be utilized. The number generated by the search
claim 1 further comprising the steps of:
engine along path 105 is concatenated with the result along
forming a group of a plurality of codes comprising at least
path 104 through XML link 110 or regular HTTP link using
said third code and said second code.
port 80. Given the number provided through the cookie, this
4. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
allows the concatenation to occur through firewalls and other
claim 1 further comprising the steps of:
devices which may otherwise block the transmission as unauforming a group of a plurality of codes comprising at least
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thorized.
said third code and said first code.
While the foregoing is directed to embodiments of the
5. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
present invention, other and further embodiments of the
claim 1 further comprising the step of:
invention may be devised without departing from the basic
sending said second code to said at least one device.
scope thereof, and the scope thereof is determined by the
6. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
15
claims that follow.
claim 1 further comprising the step of:
What is claimed is:
sending said third code to said at least one device.
1. A method for identifying invalid click(s) by a system
7. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
including at least one web page on a server side computing
claim 1 wherein said first code is a serial number.
device, the at least web page providing a plurality of links
8. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
associated with a plurality of other web pages associated with 20
claim 1 further comprising the step of:
a plurality of merchants, the method comprising the steps of:
generating a first code on the server side computing device,
storing said first code using at least a script executing
the first code identifying at least one device on a client
within a browser interface.
side;
9. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
sending said first code to said at least one device over a 25 claim 1 further comprising the step of:
communication network;
storing said first code as a cookie.
obtaining from the device on the client side, a second code
10. The method for identifying invalid click(s) as claimed
when said at least one user performs a first click on at
in claim 1 further comprising the step of:
least one of said links associated with at least one of said
preventing access to said at least one other web page if said
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other web pages at a first time;
second click on said at least one link associated with said
obtaining from the device on the client side, a third code
at least one other web page is determined to be invalid.
when said at least one user performs a second click on
11. The method for identifying invalid click(s) as claimed
said at least one link associated with said at least one
in claim 1 wherein the second code and the third code are
other web page at a second time; and
determining, by the server side computing device, whether 35 encoded.
12. The method for identifying invalid click(s) as claimed
said second click is invalid by examining a difference
in claim 1 wherein said code is based on a unique identifier
between said first time and said second time.
obtained from the device on the client or user side.
2. The method for identifYing invalid click( s) as claimed in
claim 1 further comprising the steps of:
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