please do not ask whether particular programs are infringing, as i will not answer any such questions.

please read/evaluate the patent. there are some specific non-legal examples in the patent that webmasters will find easy to grasp starting at page 19 column 2 of the pdf.

please remember that this not a predatory patent, so any comparisons to acacia are a bit naive and reflexive.

&

50

XPays Principals Awarded U.S. Patent For Internet Based Affiliate Pooling


San Francisco, October 14, 2004 -- XPays Inc. (www.XPays.com) is
pleased to announce that the United States Patent & Trademark Office
has issued U.S. Patent No 6,804,660, covering XPays' innovative
affiliate pooling technology which enables Virtual Affiliate?
advertising on the Internet. XPays principals Evan Horowitz and
Michael Landau have previously assigned their invention to their
sister company Essociate Inc. (www.Essociate.com).


"The originality of our affiliate pooling technology is confirmed by
the issuance of our first patent, and the continued growth of our
business validates the strength of the model," said Horowitz, CEO and
co-founder of XPays and Essociate. "This patent is indicative of the
foresight and innovation necessary to develop a unique affiliate
advertising network within a complex and dynamic industry. After our
initial launch in 1998, XPays endeavored to diversify its affiliate
program in mid-1999 and soon after Affiliate Pooling became the core of the XPays system."


"Considering our tremendous respect for intellectual property rights,
it is very gratifying to receive this type of acknowledgemnt from the
Patent and Trademark Office," added Landau, CTO and co-founder of both
companies.


XPays is an industry leader in the competitive performance-based
Internet advertising market, bringing together a variety of online
merchants and affiliates using the patented Affiliate Pooling model.
XPays currently partners with more than 12,000 affiliates, offering a
variety of merchants' goods and services to promote. By providing an
evolving set of tools for affiliates and merchants to combine their
resources via the XPays model, merchants have increased their brand
awareness and affiliates have profited from a stable and competitive
revenue source.


More information on U.S. Patent 6,804,660 is located at
<http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...number=6804660> or a
PDF may be downloaded from
<http://essociate.com/patents/US6804660.pdf>.

51 new patents

only in america...
u guys gone nuts with your patents and suing.

We just did.

"Advantageously, the present invention allows groups of Webmasters to participate in existing Merchant affiliate systems without the need of joining those Merchant affiliate systems"

"An invention is disclosed for Internet based affiliate pooling across existing affiliate system boundaries."

No, I think you have a responsbilty to imform us. Why not just post some of your "non_legal examples" here instead of playing games.

Tell us how this might effect us. If you are so proud of it, why not share it.. unless of course you are not wanting us to know. After all the Acacia BS the last think we need is our chain jerked

:(

I would love to agree with you but patents have gotten out of hand. Someone explain to me how Amazon's 1-click purchasing system could be patented? They simply took the cookie system and applied it to online purchasing. Or how about Microsoft's double click patent. I really would love to see patent reform.

WG

I think the DMT portfilio of patents hold more weight than this :)

:thumbsup you are on the right track

Sounds like the xpays - ars set up. One company pooling a number of websites (owned by various owners) and being in control of all advertising to those sites.

Evan am I getting warmer?

even if you submitted this patent 3 years ago

there's a lot of "prior art" out there dating back to the late 90's

I can fell the heat, keep going :thumbsup

Another company I won't do business with... not that they convert anyways.

our invention date was may 1999, which is usually considered an early invention date

That's the easy part, enforcing it will be the fun part. :winkwink:

I'm more inclined to believe in a dynamic marketplace where affiliates and merchants can interact and the marketplace selects the creatives based on which creatives perform best. A recent skinning of GFY comes to mind here...

WG

It's a patent for affiliate shaving. From now on the majority of PPS would have to pay fees to Xpays.

That makes more sense to me. thanks :thumbsup

we have paid out tens of millions of dollars and our program is commercially viable and growing.

http://www.cj.com/index.jsp
omain Name: CJ.COM

Created on..............: Wed, Feb 24, 1999
Expires on..............: Tue, Feb 24, 2009
Record last updated on..: Mon, Sep 13, 2004

Predates the patent filing date i believe :)

Yeah... sometimes I'm really glad that I'm in Europe... actually more than sometimes :winkwink:

I'll take ND, TCG, and Ox over this program anyday.

not one of our affiliates ignores which creative performs in deciding how to participate in the marketplace

and is not the same invention

Fuck. I guess you can patent almost anything. With that, I'm going to patent autoerotic stimulation.


Every time you jerk off, you owe me $10.

\

glad to see this finally went through. congrats evan.

in the microsoft deal???

Thanks Airek! Most appreciated!

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

IMHO this really depends on the definitions of 'joining' and 'Merchant affiliate systems'... for example, in the cases of cj.com and dollars.com you need to 'join' each program.

funny - no let me be specific- in affiliate advertising revenues to our affiliate host partners.

ms and xpays have settled - old news.

this is exactly the website I was thinking about... they've been doing this for a long time now and I am sure someone could find examples that are even older than cj.com

but anyways, that only conerns the guys like cj.com, dollars.com, ars, etc. so they'll have to take care of this themselves...

Isnt it though? A lot of what is in the patent is already done on cj.com, sign up...you might be surprised :)

They use a pool of webmasters, show the best running ads to their webmasters and broker the traffic to merchants, thus making the webmaster a "Virtual Affiliate" of that merchant.

Merchants from CJ.com DO post back data about sales and whatnot to CJ, which covers another aspect of your patent.


Sounds more and more like one in the same to me.

then I just don't see what the patent is if it is not exactly what cj.com is doing...

I'm not going to try and interpret the patent.

My understanding of what is meant by saying 'non predatory' is that an idea/software has been patented that provides a unique service within an existing framework. The existing framework is not infringing, but the patent holder gets exclusive rights to provide the service/software for whatever period of time.

Such as - if someone had patented cascading billing first. Affilate systems wouldn't be infringers, neither would merchant gateways, or password protection/tracking software, etc. BUT - if someone had patented that idea, then they'd be the only ones on the market allowed to get paid for providing it. You'd have nats or MPA2 exclusively, for example.

This seems to be in that area - although the question of whether or not it's an entirely new service, that no one is infringing on, is something that remains to be seen. But I don't see from reading it that existing affliate systems, cascading billing, etc, etc are included in the 'infringers' category.

Not a lawyer, just my :2 cents:

please do not ask whether particular programs are infringing, as i will not answer any such questions.

please read/evaluate the patent. there are some specific non-legal examples in the patent that webmasters will find easy to grasp starting at page 19 column 2 of the pdf.

please remember that this not a predatory patent, so any comparisons to acacia are a bit naive and reflexive.

Am I understanding this right?

Example:
"Xpays Site" works with TCG/ARS/Epic Cash/Etc

This site offers webmasters an opportunity to signup to 1 place and send traffic to a plethora of adult sites across any sponsor through your program (probably for a higher payout since I'm sure there will be volume deals you can pass on to the webmasters).

Then you guys probably take a small % off the top but not enough to effect the webmasters decision of promoting through you (see volume deals above). Payments are made through you guys rather than the primary sponsor (who is paying you).

This would probably force a little more quality to come from the primary sponsors as far as websites and content go as well... If the industry adopted something like this, it would really up the competition bar between programs.

Am I close?

Wow, fast thread!

The industry doesn't have to worry about the government shutting them down, it will be fee'd to death before they ever have to:glugglug

Wow it's amazing congrats.

Hey look all europe and the rest of the world already cares about this patent.

Anyone want this boiled down to english...


They are patenting the idea of using MULTIPLE programs/company's all in one complete package for an affiliate to use.

Im not a patent lawyer nor do i have a great deal of legal experience, but this shouldn't worry those who already have affiliate programs running. If anything this seems like a step in the right direction ( providing you are willing to use xpays system to combine your affiliates with NUMEROUS merchants and vice-versa. )

Alot of times the patent leaves alot of gray area, but from the sounds of it, this isn't an acacia type patent scam..

xpays are actually offering a new service not trying to collect off an old service.

If i'm wrong please elaborate..

Interesting stuff here...

not today I'd be willing to wager.

Well, I took the time to read column 2 on page 19 in the pdf, and I now get the jist of it. Sounds like a good idea, and I understand a little better where xpays is going with this. Take the time to read this part of the pdf and you'll get it all in a few seconds.

BTW xpays, do you already have a system that uses the ideas from this patent, or is it in development?

If this true then X-Pays has done a really great job and congrats is in order.

Sounds like you're taking over.

Are you going to hire board reps? :1orglaugh

comissionjunction.com has been doing this 4 years

sounds to me like xpays is playing games, and giving us the runaround as to what the patent really covers.. i will wait for a legal opinion before comming to judgement about this patent,

if its a legitimate patent then congrats are in order.. otherwise a big fuck you is in order.

I haven't spent a second reading the patent but I can say that reading this thread sure has been fun.