Method and system for advertising on personal computers

• US 5,781,894 A
• Filed: 08/11/1995
• Issued: 07/14/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Anthony Petrecca, Michael Kollar, Robin Whitney
• Original Assignee: Anthony Petrecca, Michael Kollar, Robin Whitney
• Inventors: Kollar, Michael, Whitney, Robin, Petrecca, Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): Hayes, Gail O.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bainbridge, Barton L.
• Application Number:
  US08/514,223
• Time in Patent Office: 1,068 Days
• Field of Search: 395/214, 395/216, 395/205, 705/5, 705/14, 705/16
• US Class Current: 705/14.4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements

Abstract

An advertising system to be used with personal computers which enables sponsors to present advertisements or commercials to a user during periods of waiting-time which are inherent in normal computer use. A segment of a software product contains one or more sponsors'"'"' audio, visual, or multi-modality messages. The advertising system chooses one of these messages and presents it to the user of the computer during the times that the user is not normally able to use the keyboard of the computer because information is being loaded up or sent out. Such times occur during the start-up of a program or during the sending of information from the computer to a peripheral device such as a printer, modem, or fax. The advertisement, or sequence of advertisements, may be chosen based upon the amount of time which the computer will need to achieve a task before being ready for new input from the user. A system is disclosed in which the user is allowed to choose to activate an advertising system in return for receiving some type of compensation.

Claims

1. An advertising system for personal computer (PC) systems comprising:

memory digital data storage means for storing one or more software programs and at least one advertising message and

message presentation controller means for determining if a computer will present said advertising message to a user wherein said means for determining if the computer will present said advertising message comprises a unique identifier number associated with said one or more software programs and also associated with two activation numbers, one of which activates both said software programs and said advertising message, and one of which activates only said software programs.

2. A method of informing a consumer of the activation number of claim 1 in which the user contacts the software company by phone and receives an activation number in accordance with the user'"'"'s answers to a set of questions.

3. A method of informing a consumer of the activation number of claim 1 in which said advertising system presents a checklist and short answer questionnaire to said user on a monitor of a computer and transmits said user'"'"'s responses to a separate computer by means of a modem, said separate computer sending back one of the two said activation numbers.

4. A method of informing a consumer of the activation number of claim 1 in which said activation number is issued by a cash register device at time of purchase, said activation number being determined by the amount charged to the consumer for the software product.

5. A cash register device as described in claim 4 wherein said database is located in a remote computer which is accessed by said cash register device by means of a modem.

6. A cash register device for issuing the activation number of claim 1 comprising a cash register means and means to access an appropriate activation number for a product based upon the unique identification of said software product and a selling price from a database containing said unique identification numbers each of which is associated with two activation numbers one of which activates both said software products and said advertising message and one of which activates only said software products.

7. An advertising system for personal computer (PC) systems comprising:

memory digital data storage means for storing one or more software programs and at least one advertising message and,

message presentation controller means for determining if a computer will present said advertising message to a user

wherein said message presentation controller means presents said advertising messages only during waiting times while documents generated by the PC are being printed.

8. An advertising system for personal computer systems according to claim 7 wherein said commerical messages are sound files that are presented to the computer user by means of the audio system of the computer.

9. An advertising system for personal computer systems according to claim 7 wherein the message presentation and controller means comprises a subroutine of computer programming code which is part of said one or more software programs.

10. An advertising system for personal computer (PC) systems according to claim 7 wherein said messages are sound files that are presented to the user by means of the audio system of the computer.

11. An advertising system for personal computer (PC) systems according to claim 7 wherein the message presentation means comprises a subroutine of computer programming code which is part of said one or more software programs.

12. An advertising system for personal computers (PC) systems according to claim 7 and a computer algorithm which automatically determines whether a particular advertisement will be presented to a viewer, the algorithm being based on one selected from the group of random presentation, counting the number of presentations of each advertising message and a calendar date.

13. An advertising system for personal computer (PC) systems according to claim 7 and a computer algorithm which provides an estimate of the approximate duration of said waiting times.

14. An advertising system for personal computer (PC) systems as in claim 13 wherein said computer algorithm which provides an estimate of the approximate duration of said waiting times is based on the computational speed of said personal computer and the size of the data to be processed.