We were able to track down Essociate’s Patent on Affiliate Marketing.
Here’s an excerpt from their Patent Abstract:
The present invention provides a method, system and computer program for affording Virtual Affiliates access to an existing affiliate system. First, having been assigned a unique identifier within a source affiliate system, a Webmaster operates a web site. Next, a request for a target Merchant Web site triggers a correlation function, such that the source Webmaster unique identifier is correlated to a target Webmaster unique identifier functional within the unique identification system of the requested Merchant system. Next, a properly formatted entry mechanism URL is returned, enabling a hand off to the target Merchant affiliate system and including the correlated target Webmaster unique identifier. The Virtual Affiliate system is notified of transactions that originated from a referring Webmaster. Referring Webmasters may be compensated for each completed transaction according to agreed-upon terms and conditions.
As you may or may not know they are making the rounds suing Affiliate Networks.
What do you think?
Check out the patent here:
What I think doesn’t much matter. Let’s see if they can make it stick in a court somewhere
Then there is a problem.
What moron in the patent department gave them a patent?
Unbelievable
Mary
very nice sir,
thanks for the information…
Thanks for digging out the patent link Brian. Really appreciate it.
What I find pretty amazing are the conditions under which patents will be granted and the foresight held by Essociates. I think the two of them go hand-in-hand.
The right conditions and the right vision can be enough to rattle a few cages into innovating again.
Cheers…Luce