Patents Examined by Bennett Sigmond
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Patent number: 9009064Abstract: A purchase-transaction-settled online consumer referral and reward system and method using real-time specific merchant sales information is provided for the advertising publishing industry. The system provides a pay per transaction platform that allows advertising publishers to monetize interactive and/or broadcast media advertising by tracking and linking ad acceptance events to consummated consumer purchases.Type: GrantFiled: July 16, 2009Date of Patent: April 14, 2015Assignee: eBay Inc.Inventors: Jon Karlin, Lee Wang
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Patent number: 8983859Abstract: A client-based ad agent dynamically determines whether an advertisement campaign should bid on an impression for an end user and/or sets the bid price of the advertisement campaign for the impression. When an opportunity for an impression on a web page is identified, the ad agent accesses user data associated with an end user. The ad agent analyzes the user data to identify the relevance and/or value of serving an impression to the end user to the advertisement campaign. Based on the analysis, the ad agent controls whether the advertisement campaign bids on the impression for the end user and/or sets the bid price of the advertisement campaign for the impression.Type: GrantFiled: June 18, 2010Date of Patent: March 17, 2015Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLCInventors: Nir Nice, Uri Barash, Ying Li, Michael J. Goldbach, William H. Gates, III
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Patent number: 8972281Abstract: A system and process is provided for distributing branding and content messages to wireless mobile devices such as mobile handsets. The system has a mobile media portal process that enables a content owner and one or more sponsors to cooperate in negotiating, planning, and executing a branding or content campaign. For a campaign, a set of consumers has indicated a desire to receive particular content information on their mobile handset, and may have used a web interface or their phone to provide demographic information and content choices. A media center interface, either automatically or under human control, associates a particular marketing message from a sponsor with the content information, and distributes the marketing message and information to the user's handset. Since the marketing message has been selected and adapted to the demographics and preferences of the user, it is likely that the user will positively respond to receiving the marketing message.Type: GrantFiled: November 3, 2006Date of Patent: March 3, 2015Assignee: Wigglewireless, LLCInventor: Thomas J Pokonosky
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Patent number: 8972277Abstract: A method of manufacturing a layered image assembly and a marketing method are provided including a passive consumer behavior tracking method without requiring an “opt-in” process. The layered image assembly includes a base layer and a top layer with an inner area formed between. An opening is provided within a perimeter of the base layer to provide access to the inner layer. The inner layer is provided with a media that may comprise coupons, offers, advertisements, collapsible springs, animated collapsible springs having an image, etc. The media may include one or more symbols for conveying information. The layered image assembly may be attached to an item, such as a substrate, envelope, package, magazine, etc. The customer information relating to the item may be associated, or merged, with the information from the one or more symbols from the media. This merging of information may be used to track customer purchases, customer information, and the like.Type: GrantFiled: June 18, 2010Date of Patent: March 3, 2015Assignee: Action Wobble, Inc.Inventors: John C. Sullivan, Jeffrey S. Samson, Cory Price, Pedro Vaca, Basil Luck
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Patent number: 8843394Abstract: Systems and methods for mapping identifiers are provided. Activity logs illustrate activities and/or events associated with a plurality of identifiers. The identifiers may be registered identifiers, unregistered identifiers, or a combination thereof. When at least two identifiers share a linking attribute, the at least two identifiers may be mapped to one another, along with information associated therewith (if any) such as a user profile. Each subsequent line of an activity line may also be mapped to the identifiers of the initial single line when a linking attribute or an overlapping identifier is present. A number of identifiers associated with each other may be increased by mapping identifiers and, thus, a targeted audience for a customized advertisement may, in turn, be increased.Type: GrantFiled: June 18, 2010Date of Patent: September 23, 2014Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Fei Cao, Shaoyu Zhou, Siddhartha Roy, Michael Elizarov, Zhuoqing Wu, James Zhang
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Patent number: 8818849Abstract: Methods and apparatus to provide incentives to deflect callers to websites are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein to deflect a caller to a webpage include receiving a call from the caller, offering an incentive to the caller to terminate the call and access the webpage, and providing an address of the webpage to the caller after the caller consents to terminate the call.Type: GrantFiled: April 26, 2013Date of Patent: August 26, 2014Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.Inventors: Jeffrey Lewis Brandt, Angela Sandoval, Aaron Bangor
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Patent number: 8818843Abstract: Methods and apparatus to determine when to deflect callers to websites are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein to deflect a caller to a webpage include receiving a call from the caller, determining a performance metric associated with processing the call, and determining whether to offer the caller an option to terminate the call and access the webpage based on the performance metric.Type: GrantFiled: April 26, 2013Date of Patent: August 26, 2014Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.Inventors: Jeffrey Lewis Brandt, Angela Sandoval
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Patent number: 8775256Abstract: A system and method for placing ads on a client-side video replay system during a pause mode.Type: GrantFiled: November 29, 2011Date of Patent: July 8, 2014Assignee: The DIRECTV Group, Inc.Inventors: Scott A. Rosenberg, Matthew H. Self
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Patent number: 8700467Abstract: Provided is an apparatus and method for providing a cell-based advertisement broadcast service in a broadband wireless communication system. In an advertisement broadcast service of a service interface server in the broadband wireless communication system, an advertisement content transmission request message containing at least one of information about advertisement broadcast content, information about an advertisement broadcast zone, and information about an advertisement broadcast channel is received from a service provider. The received advertisement content transmission request message is transmitted to an MCBCS controller.Type: GrantFiled: April 16, 2009Date of Patent: April 15, 2014Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.Inventors: Ji-Hye Ha, Sung-Won Lee, Dong-Keon Kong, Sang-Jun Moon
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Patent number: 8694374Abstract: A computer-implemented method for processing network activities is described. The method includes identifying a model that specifies attributes for network objects, identifying a network object having one or more attributes that deviate from the model, and providing as an input to a ranking algorithm a value associated with the deviance of the one or more attributes of the identified network object.Type: GrantFiled: March 14, 2007Date of Patent: April 8, 2014Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Michelangelo Diligenti, Diego Federici
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Patent number: 8666757Abstract: Fraud and abuse detection in an entity's payment coding practices includes the ability to search for fraud at all levels of the hierarchical coded payment system within the context of an unsupervised model. The model uses variables derived and profiles created at any level or at all levels of the hierarchical coded payment system to create a comprehensive description of the payment coding activities submitted by the entity. That description is compared with other peer entities to determine unusual and potentially inappropriate activity. The profiles created may themselves be utilized for purposes other than the detection of fraud and abuse.Type: GrantFiled: November 15, 2002Date of Patent: March 4, 2014Assignee: Fair Isaac CorporationInventors: Nallan C Suresh, Jean de Traversay, Hyma Gollamudi, Anu K Pathria, Michael K Tyler
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Patent number: 8655724Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described for evaluating a binary classification system operable to classify each of a plurality of events as a first event type or a second event type. At least some of the events of the first event type are independently verifiable with reference to verification data. The binary classification system is susceptible to a first error type in which events of the first event type are classified as the second event type, and a second error type in which events of the second event type are classified as the first event type. Operation of a first configuration of the binary classification system is evaluated with reference to an objective function. The objective function is derived by expressing a number of errors of the second error type in terms of a number of errors of the first error type with reference to the verification data, and by assuming relative proportions of the first and second event types within the plurality of events.Type: GrantFiled: September 5, 2013Date of Patent: February 18, 2014Assignee: Yahoo! Inc.Inventors: Richard Tao-Hwa Chow, Pavel Berkhin, Elena Eneva, Boris Klots, Nicolas Eddy Mayoraz, Rajesh Girish Parekh
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Patent number: 8600801Abstract: Methods and apparatus to deflect callers to websites are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein to deflect a caller to a webpage comprises receiving a call from the caller, identifying a webpage based on information characterizing the call, and providing an address of the webpage to the caller when the caller consents to terminate the call.Type: GrantFiled: January 30, 2007Date of Patent: December 3, 2013Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.Inventors: Jeffrey Brandt, Angela Sandoval, Douglas F. Reynolds, Aaron Bangor
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Patent number: 8554622Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described for evaluating a binary classification system operable to classify each of a plurality of events as a first event type or a second event type. At least some of the events of the first event type are independently verifiable with reference to verification data. The binary classification system is susceptible to a first error type in which events of the first event type are classified as the second event type, and a second error type in which events of the second event type are classified as the first event type. Operation of a first configuration of the binary classification system is evaluated with reference to an objective function. The objective function is derived by expressing a number of errors of the second error type in terms of a number of errors of the first error type with reference to the verification data, and by assuming relative proportions of the first and second event types within the plurality of events.Type: GrantFiled: December 18, 2006Date of Patent: October 8, 2013Assignee: Yahoo! Inc.Inventors: Richard Tao-Hwa Chow, Pavel Berkhin, Elena Eneva, Boris Klots, Nicolas Eddy Mayoraz, Rajesh Girish Parekh
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Patent number: 8527334Abstract: Technologies are described herein for sharing advertisement revenue. An advertiser-generated avatar is provided to a first participant. The advertiser-generated avatar may be associated with an advertisement. Further, the first participant may be associated with a current avatar. The current avatar is replaced with the advertiser-generated avatar. While the first participant is associated with the advertiser-generated avatar, a level of interaction between the first participant and other participants is monitored. An amount of compensation to provide the first participant is determined based on the level of interaction between the first participant and the other participants. The compensation is provided to the first participant.Type: GrantFiled: December 27, 2007Date of Patent: September 3, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Erik Porter, Tobin R. Titus, Ernest A. Booth, Mario Esposito, Vincent Edward Bannister
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Patent number: 8489458Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that receives at a server a first request to rebroadcast a first sponsored content item that was displayed on the social network to the first user to a second user. A second request to display at least one sponsored content item to the second user when the second user accesses an electronic document associated with the social network is received at the server. The first sponsored content item is retrieved for rebroadcast from one or more sponsored content items indicated for rebroadcast to the second user. The first sponsored content item is output to the second user of the social network in response to the second request to display and without requiring the second user to select the first sponsored content item for display.Type: GrantFiled: February 24, 2009Date of Patent: July 16, 2013Assignee: Google Inc.Inventors: Davi Reis, Rob Figueiredo
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Patent number: 8442859Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer program products are provided for optimizing liquidity that an Audience Producer can access for the sale of audience profile access rights by having each individual audience profile access right listed using symbology that can gamer the highest price discovery and depth of market. This is accomplished, in part, by providing multiple listing symbologies for a single asset, allowing for a determination of an optimized or improved symbology for obtaining a best purchase or sale price for a structured advertising asset.Type: GrantFiled: April 18, 2012Date of Patent: May 14, 2013Assignee: Managed Audience Share Solutions LLCInventors: Todd J. Broms, Amihai Ulman
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Patent number: 8442863Abstract: A “Real-Time-Ready Analyzer” combines a data stream management system (DSMS) with a map-reduce (M-R) framework to construct a streaming map-reduce framework that is suitable for real-time Behavioral Targeting (BT) (or other temporal queries). The Real-Time-Ready Analyzer allows users to write “dual-intent” temporal analysis queries for BT. These queries are succinct and easy to express, scale well on large-scale offline data, and can also work over real-time data. Further, the Real-Time-Ready Analyzer uses the aforementioned streaming map-reduce framework to provide dual-intent algorithms for end-to-end BT phases. Experiments using real data from an advertisement system show that the Real-Time-Ready Analyzer is very efficient and incurs orders-of-magnitude lower development effort than conventional systems.Type: GrantFiled: June 17, 2010Date of Patent: May 14, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Badrish Chandramouli, Jonathan Goldstein, Xin Jin, Balan Sethu Raman, Songyun Duan
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Patent number: 8438056Abstract: Methods and apparatus to provide incentives to deflect callers to websites are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein to deflect a caller to a webpage comprises receiving a call from the caller, offering an incentive to the caller to terminate the call and access the webpage, and providing an address of the webpage to the caller after the caller consents to terminate the call.Type: GrantFiled: January 30, 2007Date of Patent: May 7, 2013Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.Inventors: Jeffrey Brandt, Angela Sandoval, Aaron Bangor
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Patent number: 8433606Abstract: Methods and apparatus to determine when to deflect callers to websites are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein to deflect a caller to a webpage comprises receiving a call from the caller, determining a performance metric associated with processing the call, and determining whether to offer the caller an option to terminate the call and access the webpage based on the at least one performance metric.Type: GrantFiled: January 30, 2007Date of Patent: April 30, 2013Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.Inventors: Jeffrey Brandt, Angela Sandoval