Methods of expanding commercial opportunities for internet websites through coordinated offsite marketing
DC CAFCFirst Claim
1. A method of an outsource provider serving web pages offering commercial opportunities, the method comprising:
- upon receiving over the Internet an electronic request generated by a visitor computer in response to selection of a uniform resource locator (URL) within a source web page that has been served to the visitor computer when visiting a first website, wherein the URL correlates the source web page with at least one commerce object associated with a buying opportunity of a merchant,(a) automatically, with a server computer associated with a second website, retrieving data pre-stored in a storage device accessible to the server computer, and(b) automatically, with the server computer, serving to the visitor computer a composite web page of the second website, which composite web page includes;
(i) information associated with the commerce object associated with the URL that has been activated, which commerce object includes at least one product available for sale through the second website after activating the URL, and(ii) a plurality of visually perceptible elements derived from the retrieved pre-stored data defining an overall appearance of the composite web page that, excluding the information associated with the commerce object, visually corresponds to the source web page,wherein the owner of the first website is a third party with respect to the owner of the server computer, and the merchant is also a third party with respect to the owner of the server computer.
10 Assignments
Litigations
4 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An e-commerce outsourcing system and method provides hosts with transparent, context-sensitive e-commerce supported pages. The look and feel of a target host is captured for future use. The host is provided with one or more links for inclusion within a page on the host website that correlates with a selected commerce object, which may be contextually related to material in the page. The commerce object can be a product, a product category, or a dynamic selection indicator. Upon activation of the provided link, a visitor computer is served with a page with the look and feel of the host website and with content based upon the associated commerce object. Where the commerce object is a dynamic selection indicator, the content is selected at the time of activation based upon an analysis of the page containing the activated link.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method of an outsource provider serving web pages offering commercial opportunities, the method comprising:
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upon receiving over the Internet an electronic request generated by a visitor computer in response to selection of a uniform resource locator (URL) within a source web page that has been served to the visitor computer when visiting a first website, wherein the URL correlates the source web page with at least one commerce object associated with a buying opportunity of a merchant, (a) automatically, with a server computer associated with a second website, retrieving data pre-stored in a storage device accessible to the server computer, and (b) automatically, with the server computer, serving to the visitor computer a composite web page of the second website, which composite web page includes; (i) information associated with the commerce object associated with the URL that has been activated, which commerce object includes at least one product available for sale through the second website after activating the URL, and (ii) a plurality of visually perceptible elements derived from the retrieved pre-stored data defining an overall appearance of the composite web page that, excluding the information associated with the commerce object, visually corresponds to the source web page, wherein the owner of the first website is a third party with respect to the owner of the server computer, and the merchant is also a third party with respect to the owner of the server computer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A computer system apparatus for an outsource provider serving web pages offering commercial opportunities, the apparatus comprising:
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(a) an electronic storage device containing data defining a plurality of visually perceptible elements visually corresponding to a source web page, (i) wherein the source web page contains at least one active uniform resource locator (URL) that is served to the visitor computer when visiting the first website, which URL correlates the source web page with at least one commerce object associated with a buying opportunity of a merchant, and (ii) wherein the owner of the first website is a third party with respect to the outsource provider, and the merchant is also a third party with respect to the outsource provider; and (b) a computer server device controlled by the outsource provider and associated with a second website, which computer server device has a data coupling to the electronic storage device, and which computer server device is programmed to, upon receiving over the Internet an electronic request generated by a visitor computer in response to selection of the URL, automatically; (i) retrieve from the storage device the stored data defining the plurality of visually perceptible elements, and (ii) serve to the visitor computer a composite web page of the second website, which composite web page includes; (A) information associated with the commerce object associated with the URL that has been activated, which commerce object includes at least one product available for sale through the second website after activating the URL, and (B) the plurality of visually perceptible elements derived from the retrieved data, which visually perceptible elements define an overall appearance of the composite web page that, excluding the information associated with the commerce object, visually corresponds to the source web page. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method of an outsource provider serving web pages offering commercial opportunities, the method comprising:
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upon receiving over the Internet an electronic request generated by a visitor computer in response to selection of a uniform resource locator (URL) within a source web page that has been served to the visitor computer when visiting a first website, wherein the URL correlates the source web page with at least one commerce object associated with a buying opportunity of a merchant, automatically, with a server computer associated with a second website, serving to the visitor computer a dynamically generated composite web page containing instructions directing the visitor computer to display; (i) information associated with the commerce object associated with the URL that has been activated, which commerce object includes at least one product available for sale through the second website after activating the URL, and (ii) a plurality of visually perceptible elements visually corresponding to the source web page, which visually perceptible elements define an overall appearance of the composite web page that, excluding the information associated with the commerce object, visually corresponds to the source web page, wherein the instructions direct the visitor computer to download data defining the visually perceptible elements from a storage device that is accessible to the visitor computer through the Internet, and wherein the owner of the first website is a third party with respect to the owner of the server computer, and the merchant is also a third party with respect to the owner of the server computer. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification