SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DELIVERING CUSTOMIZED ADVERTISEMENTS WITHIN INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

• US 20100049613A1
• Filed: 11/04/2009
• Published: 02/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mineral Lassen LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Hemisphere Solutions NA LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Blattner, Douglas O., Angles, Paul D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,027,874 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.660
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0258 Registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0271 Personalized advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0621 Item configuration or customization

Abstract

The present invention is a system and method for delivering customized electronic advertisements in an interactive communication system. The customized advertisements are selected based on consumer profiles. and are then integrated with offerings maintained by different content providers. The preferred interactive communication system interconnects multiple consumer computers, multiple content provider computers and multiple Internet provider computers with an advertisement provider computer. Whenever a consumer directs one of the consumer computers to access an offering existing in one of the content provider computers, an advertising request is sent to the advertisement provider computer. Upon receiving the advertising request, the advertising provider computer generates a custom advertisement based on the consumer'"'"'s profile. The custom advertisement is then combined with the offering from the content provider computer and displayed to the consumer. The advertisement provider computer also credits a consumer account, a content provider account and an internet provider account each time a consumer views a custom advertisement. Furthermore, the advertisement provider computer tracks consumer responses to the customized advertisements.

Claims

1-14. -14. (canceled)

15. A computer-implemented method for providing content and an advertisement, comprising:

receiving, at a content provider computing device, a request for content from a consumer computing device;

responsive to the received request;

sending the requested content from the content provider computing device to the consumer computing device for display on the consumer computing device, and

sending a request for an advertisement from the content provider computing device to an advertisement computing device, the request for advertisement being effective to cause the advertisement computing device to select an advertisement based on demographic information associated with a user of the consumer computing device, and to send the selected advertisement to the consumer computing device for display on the consumer computing device along with the requested content, and to cause the content provider to be credited for the advertisement sent to the consumer computing device.

16. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 15, comprising:

receiving, at the content provider computing device, an indication that the content provider is credited from the advertisement computing device for the selected advertisement sent to the consumer computing device from the advertisement computing device.

17. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 15, comprising:

sending a request to the advertisement computing device to provide a credit to the content provider.

18. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 15, wherein the request for an advertisement identifies at least the content provider and the consumer.

19. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 15, comprising crediting the consumer for the selected advertisement sent to the consumer computing device from the advertisement computing device.

20. The computer implemented method as recited in claim 15, wherein the demographic information associated with the consumer is stored in a database accessible by the advertisement computing device.

21. A system for sending content over a network, comprising:

a computing device comprising a processor;

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor when operational, the memory having stored thereon computer executable instructions that in response to execution cause at least the following;

a request for content from a consumer computing device to be processed;

a request to be made for an advertisement, the advertisement selected based on demographic information associated with a user of the consumer computing device;

the requested content and the selected advertisement to be sent to the consumer computing device; and

information to be sent to an advertising computing device indicative that the content provider requests credit for the advertisement sent to the consumer computing device.

22. The system as recited in claim 21, wherein the memory communicatively coupled to the processor when operational has further stored thereon computer executable instructions that in response to execution cause at least demographic information associated with the user of the consumer computing device to be retrieved from a database.

23. The system as recited in claim 21, wherein the memory communicatively coupled to the processor when operational has further stored thereon computer executable instructions that in response to execution cause at least the selected advertisement to be requested from an advertisement computing device over a communications network.

24. The system as recited in claim 21, wherein the memory communicatively coupled to the processor when operational has further stored thereon computer executable instructions that in response to execution cause at least the selected advertisement request to comprise a consumer identifier and a content provider identifier.

25. The system as recited in claim 21, wherein the memory communicatively coupled to the processor when operational has further stored thereon computer executable instructions that in response to execution cause at least the selected advertisement to be embedded with the requested content prior to sending to the consumer computing device.

26. The system as recited in claim 21 wherein the requested content and the selected advertisement to be sent to the consumer computing device comprise an HTML page.

27. The system as recited in claim 21, wherein the memory communicatively coupled to the processor when operational has further stored thereon computer executable instructions that in response to execution cause at least the registering as a content provider with the advertisement computing device.

28. A computer-implemented method for a content provider computing device to provide content and a customized advertisement to a consumer computing device, comprising:

receiving, at the content provider computing device, a request for content from a consumer computing device, the request for content including a consumer member code;

responsive to the received request, retrieving the requested content and sending a request for an advertisement from the content provider computing device to an advertisement computing device, the request for the advertisement including the consumer member code;

receiving, from the advertisement computing device, a customized advertisement selected by the advertisement computing device based on a consumer profile associated with the consumer member code;

sending, by the content provider computing device, the retrieved content and the selected customized advertisement received from the advertisement computing device to the consumer computing device for display on the consumer computing device, and

requesting, by the content computing device, a credit from the advertisement computing device for the selected customized advertisement sent by the content provider computing device to the consumer computing device.

29. The method as recited in claim 28, comprising retrieving the consumer profile associated with the consumer member code from a database.

30. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the request for an advertisement from an advertisement computing device is sent over a communications network.

31. The method as recited in claim 28, wherein the selected customized advertisement request comprises a content provider identifier.

32. The method as recited in claim 28, comprising embedding the selected customized advertisement with the requested content prior to sending to the consumer computing device.

33. The method as recited in claim 28, comprising sending the requested content in at least one HTML page.

34. The method as recited in claim 28, comprising registering the content provider with the advertising computing device.