Peer To Patent

Basic Information

Type of Prior Art	Issued Patents - US

Country	United States of America

Patent/Application #	20080228813

Kind Code	United States (US) - United STATES Patent - A

Patentee Name	Weiss, Benjamin; Currie, Stephen

Relevant Pages, Columns, or Lines	[0020], [0024]

URL

Filing Date	March 16, 2007

Additional Information

Excerpt

Excerpt

[0020]In response to receiving one of the referral-requests 114, the server 106 may use one or more of the member-assessments 110 stored in the database 106 to create a social network appraisal 116. As will be described in detail hereinbelow, the server 106 may aggregate content from more than one of the member-assessments 110 to create the social network appraisal 116. Furthermore, in response to receiving the referral-requests 114, the server 106 may provide trusted-referrals 118. Typically, a given trusted-referral 118 is related to information regarding a good and/or service. However, trusted-referrals need not be limited to information regarding goods and/or services and may include, but are not limited to, reviews, critiques, etc. Trusted-referrals may be related to anything, tangible or intangible, for which a person may desire a referral. The referral provider 102 may receive compensation and/or payment and/or credit 120 for, among other things, providing trusted-referrals, and typically, the compensation/payment/credit 120 may be from providers of goods and/or services. The compensation/payment/credit 120 may be based upon the number of trusted-referrals related to a specific good or service. Alternatively, the compensation/ payment/credit 120 may be in accordance with a predetermined scheme such as, but not limited to, a fixed rate. [0024] In some embodiments, the referral system 104 may also provide social network services, and in that case, the server 106 may include hardware, software, and/or firmware for providing the social network services including registering users in an electronic social network.

Relevance

Claims

1

A method for generating revenue from social interaction between a plurality of participants of a marketing system, said method comprising:electronically communicating a comment regarding a resource from a first participant of the plurality of network participants to a second participant of the plurality of network participants, wherein the second participant is a member of a personal network of the first participant;

electronically communicating a comment regarding the resource from the second participant to a third participant of the plurality of network participants, wherein the third participant is a member of a personal network of the second participant; and

rewarding at least one of the first and second participants based on the electronic communication from the first participant to the second participant and the electronic communication from the second participant to the third participant, wherein the third participant purchases the resource.

Relevance

See the Excerpt.

Claim Chart

All

5

A method in accordance with Claim 1 wherein rewarding at least one of the first and second participants further comprises crediting an account of each of the first and second participants, wherein the comments communicated by the first and second participants led the third participant to purchase the resource.

Relevance

See the Excerpt.

Claim Chart

All

7

A revenue generation system for generating revenue from social interaction among a plurality of registered users, said revenue generation system comprising:a plurality of computing devices; and

at least one server communicatively coupled to said plurality of computing devices via a network, said at least one server configured to:communicate a comment regarding a resource from a first user of the plurality of registered users to a second user of the plurality of registered users;

communicate a comment regarding the resource from the second user to a third user of the plurality of registered users; and

reward at least one of the first and second users based on the communication from the first user to the second user and the communication from the second user to the third user, wherein the third user purchases the resource.

Relevance

[0021] In one embodiment, trusted-referrals 118 may include one or more of, but not limited to, an advertisement and/or a hyperlink to a web page, etc., which may include content that is related to information included in a given trusted-referral. The referral service provider 102 may receive compensation/payment/credit for providing the advertisement and/or the hyperlink to a web page, etc. As a non-limiting example, a given trusted-referral 118 may include information related to a specific athletic shoe and an advertisement and/or a hyperlink to a web page. The content included in the advertisement and/or the hyperlinked web page may include content for the specific athletic shoe, or for a different athletic shoe from the same manufacture, or for a different athletic shoe from a different manufacture, or an activity related to the athletic shoe (e.g. a basketball tournament, track and field meet, etc.). Thus, in some embodiments, the service provider 102 may receive compensation/payment/credit 120 for, among other things, providing advertisements and/or hyperlinks to web pages, etc.

Claim Chart

Some

13

A computer program embodied on a computer readable medium, said computer program comprising a code segment that configures a processor to:communicate a first comment from a first participant of the plurality of participants to a second participant of the plurality of participants, the first comment relating to a resource, wherein the second participant belongs to a personal network of the first participant;

communicate a second comment from the second participant to a third participant of the plurality of participants, the second comment relating to the resource, wherein the third participant belongs to a personal network of the second participant; and

reward at least one of the first and second participants based on at least one of the communication from the first participant to the second participant, the communication from the second participant to the third participant, and a purchase of the resource by the third participant.

Relevance

[0032]Software stored in memory 304 may include one or more separate programs, each one of which comprises an ordered listing of executable instructions for implementing logical functions. In the example of FIG. 3, the software in the memory 304 includes operating system 312 and referral-client module 314. Among other things, operating system 312 essentially controls the execution of referral-client module 314 and provides scheduling, input-output control, file and data management, memory management, and communication control and related services. [0033] Referral-client module 314 may be a source program, executable program (object code), script, or any other entity comprising a set of instructions to be performed. When implemented as a source program, referral-client module 314 is translated via a compiler, assembler, interpreter, or the like, which may or may not be included within the memory 304, so as to operate properly in connection with the O/S 312. Furthermore, referral-client module 314 can be written in one or more object oriented programming languages, which have classes of data and methods, or procedure programming languages, which have routines, subroutines, and/or functions. [0022]The referral system 104 is in two way communication with a distributed network 122 such as the Internet. Through the distributed network 122, the referral system is in two way communication with a plurality of network communication devices 124(A)-124(H). The network communication devices 124(A)-124(H) are operated by users 126(A)-126(H), respectively. Users 126(A)-126(D) comprise a first social network 128(A). Similarly, users 126(D), 126(G), and 126(H) comprise a second social network 128(B); and users 126(E)-126(H) comprise a third social network 128(C). For the purposes of this disclosure, a social network is comprised of a first-level member and at least one second level member, where the first level member may be the originating member of a given social network, i.e., the person who started the given social network, and the second level members are people that have joined the given social network. A person can be concurrently the first-level member of his/her social network and a second-level member of another person's social network. For example, user 126(D) is the first-level member of the social network 128(B) and a second level-member of the social network 128(A).

Claim Chart

Some

Summary / Description	Trusted-referral providing method, involves creating trusted-referrals using portion of referral-requests and information related to user-appraisals from members of trusted network

Notes