Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-12
2004-04-20
Stamber, Eric W. (Department: 3622)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
active
06725203
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for advertising using an Internet browser with a book-like, flipping page-based interface. The present invention takes advantage of the book-like interface to create a better advertisement-viewing/reading experience for the user on the one hand and more effective delivery of advertisements for the advertiser on the other hand. At the same time, a novel advertisement matching and delivery model in connection with this interface becomes possible and suggests new methods for matching up the content providers and advertisers, as well as methods for revenue sharing between the involved parties.
2. Discussion of the Background
Currently, documents available on the Internet are usually represented in the format of “hypertext.” Each hypertext “page” can be arbitrarily long, and may or may not fit within one computer monitor screen. Pages of hypertext are linked by “hyperlinks”—on each page of a hypertext, there might be one or more “links” in the form of pictures or words which, when selected and clicked on (with, say, an input device such as a computer mouse) will cause the hypertext document to which the hyperlink is linked to appear on the monitor screen. In other words, the text of the new page replaces the earlier hypertext page. This is the mechanism by which, for example, the two most popular Internet browsers—Microsoft INTERNET EXPLORER® and Netscape COMMUNICATOR®—function.
In order to view a hypertext page that is longer and/or larger than one screen, one or more mechanisms is provided that scroll the page up and down (and/or left and right), or jump to a particular point in the page (through the use of, for example, a computer mouse coupled with scroll bars at the edges of the page displayed on the screen). In some embodiments, hyperlinks at one location in the hypertext page may point to another location of the same page and, when the hyperlink is clicked, the destination section is brought into view.
However, it is well known in human-computer interface research that these hypertext/hyperlink assemblages suffer from a number of problems. Chief among them is the navigation problem—the reader of a hypertext/hyperlink assemblage covering several pages often becomes lost during navigation of the hypertext pages. In other words, he/she often does not know where the displayed section of the hypertext/hyperlink assemblage is located relative to the entire content of the hypertext/hyperlink assemblage, what other content is present in the hypertext/hyperlink assemblage, where the other content is relative to the total content of the hypertext/hyperlink assemblage, and how to change the display from one section of the hypertext/hyperlink assemblage to another section of the assemblage.
Another disadvantage described by Internet surfers (people who read Internet documents) is that it is difficult to return to a particular hypertext page despite the fact that “forward” and “back” buttons are available on the Internet browser (such as Microsoft's INTERNET EXPLORER® or Netscape's COMMUNICATOR®). Since the hypertext pages are linked by a large number of links with no particular sequential or ordered multi-level organization, these two simple commands make transitioning from one page to another difficult when the reader hasn't followed a direct link between those pages. In other words, the “forward” and “back” buttons presume a sequential forward-backward organization in an assemblage that lacks such organization. Thus, the Internet surfers are often lost when trying to read a document with a complex organizational structure using only simple commands to proceed through the document.
On the other hand, sequential organization of information is found in the traditional book—pages are linked sequentially one after another. Though mechanisms for jumping across many pages are available, such as by selecting a page from the side of the book and flipping to the page, the information in the book is still laid out in an orderly, sequential manner. Also, a reader/browser can jump anywhere in the book at any time in any random order while maintaining a good understanding of where he/she is in the book because, in the process of flipping and jumping about, the location information is captured by the thickness of the book on both sides of a selected page, as well as during the flipping process. The flipping of the pages allows one to know the direction of movement through the document as well as how much one has moved through the document. The advantage of knowing where one is at any given time reduces the navigation problems if not eradicates them entirely.
Furthermore, one can also quickly and easily obtain an overview of all the information in the book by flipping through the book. On the other hand, a person is not only bound to become lost when browsing a 1000-page hypertext/hyperlink assemblage. Furthermore, such an individual will have difficulties obtaining an overview of the information content of such an assemblage.
Hence the major defects with hypertext—the navigation problems—are not present in the traditional book. One can browse a book of 1000 pages, and yet one can still comfortably know where one is, what else is in the book, and how to move from one point to another.
As a result, people browsing large amounts of information on the Internet often prefer to print the hypertext pages out on paper and then hold these sheets in their hands and browse through them much like the way they would browse through a book to look for and read information of interest.
The interaction between a reader/browser and printed material in a book is a subtle and complicated activity.
To begin with, the material in a book is presented in a sequential order, with a continuity of material from page to page, and there is a hierarchical structure in the material presented (e.g., the material is organized into chapters, sections, subsections, etc.) because ideas in the material are related to each other in some kind of conceptual hierarchy. The human perceptual system inputs this data in a sequential manner, and after a book is read from the beginning to the end in a sequential fashion, the brain then recreates the conceptual hierarchy after viewing the material involved. However, very often one does not read a book (or input the material involved) from the beginning to the end because (a) one wants to have an overview of the material present; (b) one is searching for a particular item of interest; or (c) one is interested in reading only particular portions of the book (in the case of, e.g., reading the manual to understand how to operate something). In these cases, one browses through the subject book to find the material of unique interest.
Two basic things are achieved in the browsing process. First, the browser has a glimpse of what the contents of the book document are. Second, the browser has an idea of approximately where the items of interest are so that the browser can (a) return to look for them later when needed, and (b) understand the relationships between the material currently being viewed and other material (i.e., an understanding of the hierarchical structure involved). When browsing a book document, many finger-operations are required of the browser in order to flip through the pages. This mechanical act of flipping the pages, together with the inherent sequential order imposed by the pages, quickly allows the browser to have an understanding of the nature, location, and organization of the material in a book.
Similarly, the vast amount of information available on the Internet can benefit from the organizational structures normally found in a book, e.g., the sequential, page-by-page organization of information. These organizational structures give rise to two major benefits: 1. navigational problems are greatly reduced—e.g., they allow the browser to know where a particular portion of text is relative to the entire content of a document, what other information exists in th
Chow Chee Kwan
Ho Seng Beng
Seet Chern Hway
Tan Eugene Eng Khian
Wan Hong Khoon
Champagne Donald L.
E-Book Systems Pte Ltd.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
Stamber Eric W.
LandOfFree
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