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Originally Posted by TopBucksTrixxxia
....depending on when Apache started doing that & if it kept track of who/what or if it used a CGI script - would that not prove that it was not a miraculous discovery?
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evidence such as this could prove that the patent was "non-obvious", that anyone "skilled in the arts" could see that other things were going around that would naturally have led to this invention.
amazon is at the early stages, somewhat like declaratory judgement, that if they can show the judge that (adult) websites were embedding an identifier in the URL to track clickthrus for commissions, etc.. then this case can get closed.
If amazon cannot come up with a silver bullet by the end of january, then it will have to go to court, where they will bring in expert witnesses, testimony, and evidence such as what you have been finding.. but that means a drawn-out legal process.
If the defendants against Acacia had this same opportunity, they probably could have nipped acacia right from the beginning.. we found some great prior art of digital video being used on BBS way before the Acacia patent.. but in the Acacia patent case, it went through Markman Hearings, etc,etc...which drew this thing out over 3 years.
To better focus people's time in searching, there has to be a clear usage of an identifier, embeded within the URL that would be used for affiliates.
anything other than the above focus, is something that the defense attorneys probably already found, or not useful to them at this stage of the game unless there is specifically the demonstrated use of an affiliate link.
many thanks for to everyone jumping in to find the prior art. this patent really is an important one to unravel.... if adult industry use of affiliate links can't be found prior to sep 1995, then it doesn't look good for everyone.
I feel that this patent is "obvious" due to CGI programming on webservers back at that time, that would easily lead to affiliate marketing integration.
Fight the duhhhhh!