Patents Examined by Matthew L Hamilton
  • Patent number: 10643232
    Abstract: A facility for presenting advertising messages on behalf of multiple advertisers is described. The facility determines allocations that each specify a share for an advertiser, the specified shares all being different. The facility causes advertising messages to be presented on behalf of the advertisers in accordance with the shares specified by their allocations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2020
    Assignee: Zillow, Inc.
    Inventors: Yiqing Wang, Stanley B. Humphries, Chloe Linden Harford
  • Patent number: 10614478
    Abstract: A directed digital currency system, method, and apparatus comprising a proprietary directed digital currency comprising voucher-tag-objects; a network of purpose systems that generate and use the directed digital currency; purpose system members; a network processor; physical tags, tag-objects and apparatuses including modules configured for identification, qualification, generation, aggregation, detection, and redemption of elements including the directed digital currency in accordance with interoperability rules; directed digital currency redeemers configured to redeem the directed digital currency; users that receive and redeem the directed digital currency in exchange for an exchange item; a process to collect value to pay for units of the directed digital currency generated; and a process to disburse value to directed digital currency redeemers that redeem units of the directed digital currency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2020
    Inventor: Randolph Georgi
  • Patent number: 10600071
    Abstract: A content delivery system ensures viewability of ads in a flip-based digital magazine. User behavior in the environment of the digital magazine is observed and processed to identify one or more opportunities for ad placement. Ads are selected and placed in the digital magazine in such a way as to satisfy temporal and spatial criteria relating to display of the ads. In one embodiment, a full-page ad is inserted between consecutive content pages of the digital magazine in response to a flip action being performed by the user. The digital magazine may lock the ad in place and allow page transition after minimum display duration is satisfied. In another embodiment, an embedded ad is persisted between consecutive content pages to ensure minimum display duration is satisfied.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2020
    Assignee: Flipboard, Inc.
    Inventor: David Wigder
  • Patent number: 10592928
    Abstract: Examples include determining content for displays based on bid requests. Some examples include transmitting a probing request to a display computing device and receiving a portfolio list from the display computing device. The portfolio list may include a first identifier for a first content stored on the display computing device. Examples may also include determining a user viewing history of the first content, and transmitting a bid request to the display computing device. The bid request may indicate the user viewing history of the first content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2020
    Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP
    Inventors: Hang Ung, Anupriya Ankolekar
  • Patent number: 10558995
    Abstract: A value management system which facilitates substantially real-time exchange of loyalty value during transactions. The value management system includes an exchange computer for acting as an intermediary between a loyalty member computer and a loyalty system on behalf of a loyalty member. The exchange computer is for storing login information of the loyalty member, for accessing a loyalty account of the loyalty member within the loyalty system using the login information, for determining a loyalty value associated with the loyalty account, for performing a transaction with the loyalty member involving a change in the loyalty value in exchange for other value, and for charging a fee from the loyalty member in return for the transaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 11, 2020
    Assignee: NCR Corporation
    Inventors: Tim Heffernan, Rob Borucki
  • Patent number: 10552865
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for delivering content to an audience member via one or more mediums based on an audience member profile are disclosed. Profile data for audience members may be initially collected from an offline source, such as a registration or subscription database. The profile data may be stored in a dedicated database. The initial profile data may be supplemented periodically with data reflecting online activity by the audience member. The combined offline and online profile data may be used to group the audience members into segments. Audience member segments may be used to identify audience members who are targeted to receive like content. An audience member's inclusion in a segment may be indicated by storing a segment-targeting cookie on the audience member computer. Content may be delivered to the audience member based on identification of the segment in the segment-targeting cookie.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2020
    Assignee: Oath (Americas) Inc.
    Inventor: Joseph G. Wilson
  • Patent number: 10521823
    Abstract: Systems and methods for providing promotional materials to potential customers are described. In some cases, the described methods include obtaining GPS coordinates of a merchant's location. In some cases, the methods further include providing a map showing the locations of customers in a promotion area, wherein a merchant is able to resize the promotion area to increase or decrease how many customers are in the promotion area. In some cases, the merchant further produces a text or other electronic promotion, optionally sets a time period in which such promotion is effective, and provides the promotion to customers within the promotion area. In some cases, as customers enter the merchant's location with their electronic devices that received the promotion, and during the promotion's effective period, the described systems match such devices' GPS coordinates with the GPS coordinates of the merchant's location to register conversions on the promotion. Other implementations are described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignee: MYSTIC MEDIA LLC
    Inventors: Christopher Silvestro, Gregory Charles Chotkowski
  • Patent number: 10504151
    Abstract: A method of managing advertisement inventory in an internet advertising system is provided. The method comprises forecasting advertisement capacity using a plurality of predefined advertisement targeting parameters arranged in a tree structure to define a plurality of buckets, wherein each bucket is associated with a combination of the predefined advertisement targeting parameters. The method further comprises matching sold advertisement data with at least one of the plurality of predefined advertisement targeting parameters in the tree structure. The method further comprises determining available advertisement inventory by the inventory management system for the at least one predefined parameter by reducing the forecasted advertisement capacity by the matched sold advertisement data. The method further comprises delivering advertisements by an ad server to display devices associated with internet users who match the combination of predefined advertising targeting parameters of at least one bucket.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
    Inventors: Yiqing Wang, John Dietz, Janet Schertzinger
  • Patent number: 10504139
    Abstract: Online advertising campaigns are operated responsive to keyword trends. The keywords used by a group of browsers is analyzed periodically over time. A list of the most frequently used keywords is separated into those that have previously appeared on the list, referred to herein as the stable keywords, and those that are newly emerging, referred to herein as the trending keywords. The advertiser selects at least one advertising creative that the advertiser associates with the stable keywords, referred to herein as the stable creative, and at least one advertising creative that the advertiser associates with the trending keywords, referred to herein as the trendy creative. The advertising system then operates the online advertising campaign to deliver the respective stable and trendy creatives in proportion to the frequency of use of the trending versus the stable keywords.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: Quantcast Corporation
    Inventors: Julie L. Heiser, Vera M. K. Dadok
  • Patent number: 10467642
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with tracking in store consumer behavior are described. One example method includes receiving a product tag data (PTD) and a personal data (PD) from a portable digital device (PDD). The PTD is associated with a scan of a product tag of a product. The example method may also include storing the PTD and the PD in a database. The example method may also include creating a virtual redeemable offer (VRO) based, at least in part, on an analysis of the PD, the PTD associated with the scan, and a product information (PI) associated with the product tag. The PI may be stored in the database and describes the product. The example method may also include providing the CRVC to the PDD.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 15, 2008
    Date of Patent: November 5, 2019
    Assignee: MICRO FOCUS LLC
    Inventors: Riddhiman Ghosh, Jhilmil Jain
  • Patent number: 10453095
    Abstract: Provided are an advertisement providing system and method. The advertisement providing method acquires information on a user interaction, acquires a second advertisement schedule which is generated by rescheduling a first advertisement schedule on the basis of the information on the user interaction, and provides an advertisement according to the second advertisement schedule.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 22, 2019
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Jong-hyun Kim, Hyun-suk Min, Young-sik Lee, Dae-yeon Jeong
  • Patent number: 10445756
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a system and method for managing an incentive-based recycling program. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to managing an incentive-based recycling program through administering a dynamic customer loyalty rewards program associated therewith.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2019
    Assignee: RECYCLEBANK LLC
    Inventors: Ron Gonen, Morley Ivers
  • Patent number: 10438227
    Abstract: An improved online rewards program offering automatic reward disbursement once there is a sufficient account balance and providing efficient reward delivery entirely through the internet. The rewards program offers a broad range of opportunities to earn points over the internet through a variety of online vendors from which a customer may choose to shop or earn points through alternate means. The rewards consist of legally obtained instantly deliverable digital products which could have otherwise been illegally downloaded with the aid of online piracy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2019
    Inventor: Sasha Hyatt Nordeen
  • Patent number: 10430825
    Abstract: A digital medium environment is described to recommend advertisements using ranking functions. A ranking function is configured to compute a score by applying a user context vector associated with a user to individual ranking weight vectors associated with advertisements, and provide the advertisement with the highest score to the user. In order to learn the ranking weight vectors for the ranking function, training data is obtained that includes user interactions with advertisements during previous sessions as well as user context vectors. The ranking weight vectors for the ranking function associated with each advertisement can then be learned by controlling the score generated by the ranking function to be higher for positive interactions than the negative interactions. To do so, the ranking weight vectors may be learned by optimizing an area under the curve ranking loss (AUCL) for the ranking function.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2019
    Assignee: Adobe Inc.
    Inventors: Sougata Chaudhuri, Georgios Theocharous, Mohammad Ghavamzadeh
  • Patent number: 10417662
    Abstract: Methods, machine-readable media, apparatuses and systems are provided to save electronic advertisements selected by a user. An electronic advertisement displayed with a first application of a mobile device of the user is received after selection of a save option associated with the electronic advertisement. The electronic advertisement is saved. The electronic advertisement is provided to the mobile device after receipt of a command from a second application of the mobile device. The electronic advertisements may include any type of incentive or offer, including coupons.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2019
    Assignee: YELLOWPAGES.COM LLC
    Inventors: Srinivas A. Mandyam, Krishna Vedati, David Lothele Williams
  • Patent number: 10410231
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a recycling system and method thereof. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of implementing an incentive-based recycling system which rewards clients for recycling recyclable goods via financial or other incentives. In one embodiment, a method of implementing a system of incentive-based recycling comprises dispatching a vehicle on a collection route, collecting recyclable material from a series of collection points, obtaining unique identification data from each collection point, dropping off recyclable material at a drop-off facility, uploading the unique identification data to a central database, and allocating rewards to a customer corresponding to a measurement of the unique identifying data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2019
    Assignee: RECYCLEBANK LLC
    Inventor: Ron Gonen
  • Patent number: 10410238
    Abstract: Systems and methods for using wireless beacons in point of purchase (“POP”) displays to facilitate the delivery of consumer oriented content to mobile devices is disclosed herein. Wireless beacons may be used to broadcast wireless signals from POP displays, where the wireless signals include data packets with unique identifiers for the wireless beacons. A wireless signal from a POP display may be received by a wireless network gateway located at a retail location. The retail location of the wireless network gateway may be known to a remote server. The wireless network gateway may provide the unique identifier in the wireless signal to the remote server. The remote server may assess the location of the POP display based on the unique identifier for the wireless beacon being received from the wireless network gateway.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2019
    Assignee: Shelfbucks, Inc.
    Inventor: Charles Walden
  • Patent number: 10387911
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and media for detecting suspicious activity in connection with advertisement impressions are provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: Integral Ad Science, Inc.
    Inventors: Jason Lloyd Shaw, David William Luttrell, Arun Ahuja
  • Patent number: 10373189
    Abstract: Systems and methods for using wireless beacons in point of purchase (“POP”) displays to facilitate the delivery of consumer oriented content to mobile devices is disclosed herein. A processor coupled to a wireless beacon may record information obtained from sensors coupled to a POP display. The sensors may assess environmental activity and/or user activity around the POP display. A mobile device may record information about interactions between the mobile device and the wireless beacon and store the information in a memory cache on the mobile device. The information from the processor and the mobile device may be transmitted to a remote server via wireless communication from both the processor and the mobile device at selected times.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: Shelfbucks, Inc.
    Inventor: Charles Walden
  • Patent number: 10373190
    Abstract: Systems and methods for using wireless beacons in point of purchase (“POP”) displays to facilitate the delivery of consumer oriented content to mobile devices is disclosed herein. Wireless beacons may be used to broadcast wireless signals from POP displays, where the wireless signals include data packets with unique identifiers for the wireless beacons. A wireless signal from a POP display may be received by a mobile device. The mobile device may provide the unique identifier in the wireless signal and a geographic location of the mobile device to a remote server. The remote server may assess the location of the POP display based on the unique identifier for the wireless beacon and the provided geographic location of the mobile device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: Shelfbucks, Inc.
    Inventor: Charles Walden