Methods and systems for facilitating caching of advertisements

• US 9,767,465 B2
• Filed: 10/28/2011
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Excalibur IP, LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Inventors: Goyal, Prabhakar, Gupta, Sanjay Kumar, Dodda, Rampradeep
• Primary Examiner(s): Brandenburg, William A
• Application Number:
  US13/284,129
• Publication Number:
  US 20130110643A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,153 Days
• Field of Search: 705 144
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Methods and Systems for facilitating caching of advertisements are described. The methods include receiving an ad request and generating a serving plan in response to said receiving the ad request. The serving plan includes multiple cache lines that identify corresponding advertisements. Each of the cache lines is associated with a corresponding expiration. Also, each cache line is readable by logic to display one of the advertisements corresponding to the cache line. The cache lines include a first cache line. The first cache line includes ad information, which is associated with a first one of the advertisements. Moreover, the ad information includes one or more parameters for expiration of the first cache line of a client device. The client device is configured to display the plurality of advertisements. The method includes sending the serving plan to the client device to store in the client device.

Claims

1. A method performed by a client device for splitting communication of graphics and serving plans associated with advertisements, comprising:

receiving an ad media package via a computer network;

determining whether web page data is received;

generating an ad request in response to determining that the web page data is received;

sending the ad request to an ad server via the computer network,

wherein said receiving the ad media package via the computer network is performed before said sending the ad request to the ad server, wherein the ad media package includes graphics of a first one of a plurality of advertisements;

receiving a serving plan from the ad server in response to said sending the ad request, wherein the serving plan when received excludes the ad media package, the serving plan including a plurality of cache lines identifying the advertisements, each of the cache lines having a corresponding expiration time of deletion of the cache line from the client device, the plurality of cache lines including a first cache line and a second cache line, the first cache line including ad information, the first cache line readable by logic to display the first advertisement, the second cache line readable by the logic to display a second one of the advertisements, the ad information including an identity of the ad media package for rendering within a web page the graphics of the first advertisement and a number of times for which the first advertisement is to be displayed within the web page, the client device configured to display the advertisements, wherein the web page is rendered from the web page data;

storing the serving plan within the client device, wherein said storing is performed by processing logic of the client device;

periodically updating the serving plan based on an ad refresh;

reading the first cache line to determine whether the ad media package identified by the first cache line is stored in the client device;

rendering the ad media package within the web page for the number of times upon determining that the ad media package identified by the first cache line is stored in the client device.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein the web page data is associated with a space identification (ID) and includes an ad position, said method further comprising determining whether the ad information associated with the space ID and with the ad position is stored in the client device in response to determining that the web page data is received, wherein said generating an ad request comprises generating the ad request in response to determining that the client device lacks the ad information.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending a uniform resource locator (URL) request for the web page data;

receiving the web page data in response to the URL request; and

determining that the web page data is received upon receiving the web page data.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein said generating the ad request comprises generating a request for an identification of the first advertisement to be displayed.

5. The method of claim 1,

wherein the serving plan includes a plurality of frequencies of display of the advertisements.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a media package request for the ad media package, wherein generating the media package request is performed to send the media package request via the computer network, wherein receiving the ad media package is in response to the media package request for the ad media package; and

storing the ad media package in an ad media cache (AMC) of the client device.

7. The method of claim 6,

wherein the serving plan is sent to be stored in a cache of the client device.

8. The method of claim 1,

wherein the ad media package has a current version, the method further comprising:

receiving an indication that a subsequent version of the ad media package is available;

determining whether one or more of the plurality of cache lines in the client device refers to the current version in response to said receiving an indication;

generating and sending a request for the subsequent version in response to determining that the one or more cache lines lacks reference to the current version; and

avoiding said generating and sending the request in response to determining that the one or more cache lines refers to the current version.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

loosing communication with the ad server, wherein rendering the ad media package to display the first advertisement is performed after the communication is lost.

10. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first cache line includes a first space identification (ID) of the web page data in which the graphics is to be embedded, an ad position indicating a position of embedding the graphics within the web page, an ad tag categorizing the first advertisement, and a constraint on the first advertisement, the constraint including a frequency of display of the first advertisement.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining to execute the ad refresh;

generating an additional ad request in response to the determination to execute the ad refresh;

sending the additional ad request; and

receiving an additional serving plan in response to said sending the additional ad request.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining whether an ad media package associated with the additional serving plan is stored in an ad media cache (AMC);

determining that a cache miss occurred in response to determining that the ad media package associated with the additional serving plan is not stored in the AMC;

generating an additional media package request to obtain the ad media package associated with the additional serving plan via the computer network; and

receiving the ad media package associated with the additional serving plan via the computer network in response to sending the additional media package request.

13. A system for splitting communication of graphics and serving plans associated with advertisements, comprising:

a client device configured to receive an ad media package via a computer network,

the client device configured to execute an application to allow access to web page data of a web page, the client device configured to generate and send an ad request upon downloading the web page data, the client device including an ad decision cache (ADC), wherein the client device is configured to receive the ad media package via the computer network before sending the ad request, wherein the ad media package includes graphics of a first one of a plurality of advertisements; and

an ad server for receiving the ad request, the ad server for generating a serving plan in response to receiving the ad request, the serving plan including a plurality of cache lines identifying the advertisements, each of the cache lines having a corresponding expiration time of deletion of the cache line from the ADC, the plurality of cache lines including a first cache line and a second cache line, the first cache line readable by logic to display the first advertisement, the second cache line readable by the logic to display a second one of the advertisements, the first cache line including ad information further including an identity of the ad media package for rendering the graphics of the first advertisement and a number of times for which the first advertisement is to be displayed within the web page,

the client device configured to receive the serving plan in response to the ad request, wherein the serving plan received excludes the ad media package, the client device further configured to read the first cache line to determine whether the ad media package identified by the first cache line is stored within the client device, the client device further configured to render the ad media package within the web page for the number of times upon determining that the ad media package identified by the first cache line is stored in the client device.

14. claim The system of claim 13,

wherein the ad request includes a request for the ad information, wherein the ad information further includes a space identification (ID) categorizing the web page data and an ad position of embedding the graphics within the web page data.

15. The system of claim 13,

wherein the client device comprises a display device, the graphics including media elements, the display device configured to apply the media elements to render the first advertisement.

16. A method performed by a server for splitting communication of graphics and serving plans associated with advertisements, comprising:

sending an ad media package to a client device via a computer network;

receiving an ad request from the client device in response to an access to one of a number of webpages, the ad request including data regarding multiple advertisements,

wherein said sending the ad media package to the client device via the computer network is performed before receiving the ad request, wherein the ad media package includes graphics of one of the advertisements; and

sending to the client device a serving plan in response to the ad request, wherein the serving plan when sent excludes the ad media package, the serving plan including a plurality of cache lines including a first cache line and a second cache line, the first cache line including an identity of the ad media package, an expiration time of the first cache line, and a number of times for which the one of the advertisements is to be displayed, wherein the graphics of the one of the advertisements is to be rendered for the number of times, the first cache line associated with a web page identification (ID) of the one of the web pages in which the ad media package is to be rendered, wherein the client device is configured to render the ad media package within the one of the web pages for the number of times.

17. The method of claim 16,

wherein the web page ID is based on a browsing history of a user.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

determining an ad tag associated with the web page ID, the ad tag identifying the one of the advertisements.

19. The method of claim 16,

wherein the second cache line includes a time of expiration of the second cache line.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving an additional ad request, the additional ad request received when a selection of an ad refresh is made using the client device; and

sending an additional serving plan in response to receiving the additional ad request, the additional serving plan associated with different versions of the advertisements than that associated with the serving plan.