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September 17, 2004

amazon, netflix, and overstock sued for internet visitor tracking patent infringement

According to an article in eWeek, BTG plc, a London-based patent acquisition and licensing company, has filed suit in the U.S. Federal Court in Delaware against Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Netflix Inc. and Overstock.com. According to BTG, they are asking for unspecified damages and an injunction against continuing use of its tracking technology embodied in patent Nos. 5,717,860 and 5,712,979.  Both patents were filed on Sept. 20, 1995.

According to the abstract of the '979 patent, the claimed technology covers:

A method and apparatus for tracking the navigation path of a user that has been directed to a second site on the WWW from a first site on the WWW. A URL is received at the second WWW site when the user is directed from the first site to the second site. At the second WWW site, information representative of an identity of the first WWW site is captured by identifying a first code in the URL. A destination web page is determined for the user, and a revised destination web page is formed by attaching a second code representative of the identity of the first WWW site into at least one selected web page link associated with the destination web page. The revised destination web page is then transmitted to the user.

Seeing as Stephen over at The Invent blog has recently posted about his visitor tracking results, perhaps BTG may find some other targets?

Posted by Douglas Sorocco at 12:45 PM.
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