Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-27
2001-04-10
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C705S400000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06216112
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to software distribution and the Internet and, more specifically, to a method for offering and distributing software and date with replenishable advertisements wherein author compensation is based on advertisement generated revenues.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The state of the art for software program and data sales and distribution consists of retail, shareware, and freeware. All three methods are susceptible to abuses such as illegal copying and casual distribution. Such abuses result in significant loss of revenue to software authors companies that produce and sell software.
The retail sale of software programs is identical to other types of retail sales with software programs being sold in stores, through the mail, and more recently, on-line via the Internet. Frequently software and data sold over the Internet are made available to consumers on a trial basis with the trial version of the software program ceasing to function after an interval of time, e.g., thirty days. Retail sale of software is problematic because programs frequently are illegally copied and distributed by a purchaser of a legitimate copy of the software. The software's author receives no compensation for the illegal copies. Moreover, the free trial usage period by some software program retailers is abused by computer users who tamper with the system clock or who simply download a fresh trial version of the software after the trial period has expired.
Shareware distribution of software programs is based upon the honor system. Shareware software programs comprise windows that remind the user to register their purchase and pay the fee so that a code may be received by the user and entered in the shareware software program. After the code is entered, the shareware program stops reminding the use to register the software being used. Shareware programs are most commonly downloaded from the Internet. Share distribution of software is also not an efficient means for collecting revenues for the authors of the software programs. Most users of shareware simply choose to ignore the registration requests and use the software without paying the requested fee.
Freeware software programs are free to the user and do not solicit any form of payment. Freeware software is the most common type of software downloaded from the Internet. Many freeware software programs are distributed by organizations which also solicit donations to fund their activities. Freeware distribution of software programs collects little or no revenues or the authors of a software program.
It is also know that the state of the art for advertising on personal computers (PCs) currently consists of Internet advertising that is displayed using World Wide Web (or Internet) browser software. As users browse the Internet, the various sites they visit display advertisements of a random nature or advertisements that are related to the content of the Web pages being browsed. Although this method of advertisement is growing rapidly it is not ideal in several respects. Web page based advertisements are easy to ignore. They generally occupy a small area of the computer monitor's display and are inconsistent in appearance with the material that hosts them. Internet users quickly adjust and typically ignore advertisements. To solve this problem, Web based advertisements are becoming more striking in appearance and are making use of animation. However, the advertisement's animation requires additional time when loading a Web page into a user's browser and ultimately detracts from the material that hosts the advertisement.
Because of television, most people in this country are accustomed to the concept of viewing advertisements in exchange for having free access to programming. However, people who work rarely, if ever, view traditional media Advertisements (i.e., television ads) during business hours. Similarly, few people access the Internet for casual browsing during business hours, instead saving casual Internet use until evening.
Because evening users are accessing the Internet, they are not watching television and are not watching or hearing traditional advertisements.
Consequently, because of the increase in the number of people who access the Internet in the evening, fewer people are being exposed to main stream advertisements during the time period when traditionally most people viewed advertising on television. For these reasons, it is desirable for the advertisement industry that an effective method of advertising on the Internet should be developed. This advancement would enable the industry to expose users to advertisements both during the work day and especially during the evening hours.
An advancement of the art is needed for distributing software programs that insures equitable payment to the authors and distributors of said programs. Further, advertisements that are difficult to ignore and are viewed whenever the software program is used should be used to generate the payment for these software programs. Without these advertisements, advertisers will continue to face a decreasing number of viewers. As mentioned above, because of radio, television and the print media, consumers are already used to viewing or hearing advertisements as a means to access an otherwise free service.
An additional advancement is needed which allows advertisers to monitor the frequency of use of advertisement sponsored software. In this manner, advertisers and potential advertisers can appropriately determine the value of the advertising rights of any given software program. Moreover to capture the interest of software users, such advertisements should be frequently updated and should allow the consumer to receive additional product information or even purchase the advertised product.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention as disclosed herein realizes a major advancement in the state of the art by providing a means for collecting payment for software programs distributed via the Internet. With this invention, software programs are paid for by sponsors who have advertisements inserted into the programs either prior to or as the software is being downloaded onto a user's computer. In this manner, authors of software programs can guarantee that they will receive payment for their in products. Instead of being damaged, the software authors and sponsors of the advertisements actually receive additional benefit when users copy and distribute software to friends and colleagues. Normally this practice is illegal and deprives authors of rightful revenues. But with this invention, software authors are paid by advertisers and the advertisers actually benefit by widespread distribution of the software. Regardless of the means, distribution insures that a wider audience will view the advertisements and the value of the advertisements will increase.
In addition, the disclosed method of distributing software is consistent with cultural expectations. Our current culture is familiar with free television and radio programming—free only because it is supported by advertisement revenues. The invention as disclosed herein relies on the same principle by providing customized advertisements to distribute and pay for software programs.
Distribution of digitized data other than software will also benefit from the disclosed invention. This is especially true of data made available on the Internet. The data made available with advertisements may be part of a software package, may be formatted by a software shell or may be pure unformatted data. Graphic, audio, or video content could be an example of such data.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, an Internet Web Server functions as a host computer for storing software programs. The programs are loaded onto the Web Server by their authors making them accessible to Internet users. These users can then access the Web Server, survey the available software stored on the Server, and then download the chosen software for installation and storage on a hard disk or some oth
Fuller William H.
Neel Douglas E.
Pugh Joel A.
LandOfFree
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