Good morning. We have a case of set for all argument. We also have one case set for resolution on the briefs. The first case for all argument is e-associate ink versus click booth 15-1332. Good morning. Good morning, Your Honours and may please the Court. E-associates 660 patent claims are not directed at an abstract idea, but rather the very specific process of providing web masters with access to an existing merchant affiliate system without ever having to join that system. The gist of the 660 patent is accessed. The gist of the patent is not the abstract idea of tracking and receiving of referrals. What is it by the gist? Your Honour, when the Court reads the claims, either alone or in combination with one another, the theme of the gist, the heart of the patent, is it provides access. Web masters have access to multiple merchant affiliate systems that they never have to join. What's your legal authority that would compel the district court to hunt for the gist or the heart of a patent? Your Honour, the Court must, if there is an abstract idea, search for an inventive concept. But the first step is to look at the claims and find out what are they directed at. What's the purpose of the patent? The purpose of this patent is to provide access. So that's looking at the limitations, claim limitations? Yes, Your Honour. Looking at the claim limitations
. So it's not the heart or the gist we're looking for correct? Your Honour, I would disagree, but perhaps it's just a semantic game. The purpose of the patent, what the claims are directed at, the gist of the patent, I believe that jurisprudence would find is the same. And in this case, the gist of the patent, the purpose of the claims, what the claims are directed is access. It's not the abstract idea of tracking and receiving of referrals. Rather, the merchant has always been capable of tracking and receiving of referrals. And even after the invention is implemented, the merchant will continue to track and receive referrals in the same way it always has. The only difference is that now webmasters have access to multiple merchant affiliate systems. Whereas before, in order to gain that access, the webmasters had to join each in every system and adopt unique coding systems from every single merchant. The merchants, similarly, have access to a huge pool of webmasters. And the merchants need not provide codes to all these webmasters. The webmasters come ready to access the system through the virtual affiliate system. The 660 patent adds an inventive concept on the preexisting technology on the prior art. Specifically, the patent requires that there are three specialized computer systems. Two existed before their preexisting technology. The third is added by the invention
. And not until those three specialized computers are in place. What specialized computer are you talking about? There are three. The first is why don't you talk about the one that you think is the new inventive concept? Well, the inventive concept is the four-step process built upon the three computers. Three computers is a foundation. Four-day computers specialized. Yes, Your Honor. The first is an existing merchant affiliate system. That's not a generic system. I can't run that on my common everyday laptop. It's a system that's capable of receiving requests from merchants, of assigning a specialized coding system, of tracking, accounting for revenue, and making payouts. Why couldn't you write it on your lap? Right. If you had the right software. Your Honor, I suppose, that any specialized computer could run, or any specialized system could run on any computer. You can't call the specialized computer if you're just talking about a computer that's programmed to do a certain thing. The Supreme Court's made that really clear
. Well, Your Honor, for example, a GPS system was found to be specialized, but GPS is in every device. It's on common everyday computers. It's on cell phones, but it's considered specialized because of the software that underlies it. And here, the merchant affiliate system, the existing system, is capable of doing what a common everyday computer knows. Can GPS run on a common everyday computer? You can, Your Honor. How you've answered your own question. My laptop is GPS enabled. I don't know, however, that my laptop could run an existing merchant affiliate system. I don't believe my laptop is powerful enough. Certainly isn't programmed to assign codes to multiple webmasters. Well, I mean, you can't be arguing that a computer is a special purpose computer or not, to pinning up on its capacity and operating memory and the like. It's still a general purpose computer until you program it. Your Honor, every computer is a general purpose computer until programming it. That's why the Supreme Court has basically said, you don't get a patentable invention by programming a computer. You don't get a patentable invention
. Unless the program itself is some kind of technological innovation. So how does your program improve the general purpose computer? Improve it in its running. The existing merchant affiliate system is only capable of accepting requests from webmasters that sign up with the system who adopt the coding system of the existing merchant affiliate system. With the invention. Is that an internet-centric problem? It is your honor because affiliate systems never existed before the internet. The affiliate system is unique to the internet. It allows for a webmaster to provide referrals to merchants. And it's done through a computer coding system. Your innovation isn't an affiliate system, isn't it? Or it is not your honor. Your innovation is you've created a broker to broke these deals. No, Your Honor, it's not a broker. It's an access point. It's not a broker because it's not offering the services of the merchant, but rather provides technology that allows a webmaster to gain access to the merchant affiliate system without ever having to join. Before the 660 patent, the way of affiliate systems was, every webmaster had to join multiple merchant affiliate systems. And there are two kinds
. There is a direct in the hub. So webmasters had to join several direct, several hub. And each had its own coding system. So the webmaster was burdened with signing up in multiple systems and adopting multiple codes and programming it system to work with every single one of these merchants. Where is now with the virtual affiliates? You're trying to say that yours is patentable because it improves the preexisting merchant affiliate system. Why is the preexisting merchant affiliate system patentable under recent Supreme Court precedent? Isn't it just doing an abstract idea, organizing conventional, human economic activity through a computer? Here, I have two answers to that question. Why is the existing merchant affiliate system patentable? The first obvious answer is because the patent office granted a patent at Amazon.com. Well, that's not a very good answer. I mean, we've rejected the district court has rejected and the Supreme Court has rejected dozens of patents under one of one of the patent office granted. I'm not here to argue that the existing merchant affiliate system is patentable. I'm here to argue that the improvement upon it. Well, if the existing one contains an abstract idea that's not patentable, you're doing it slightly better because you program it differently. Surely, isn't patentable either, is it? You're on the 660 patent provides access to the existing merchant affiliate system. The existing merchant affiliate system is patentable because it provides for a transaction that was never capable before the internet
. You have an existing affiliate system and you're saying that your patent directs traffic between these affiliate systems. No, you're on it. The patent provides access. It doesn't direct traffic. There's a... It provides access to... Yes, it's a like a portal. What would you call it? Traffic light. It allows for a portal that never existed. In the past, a webmaster had to join multiple systems and merchants had to attract multiple webmasters. Whereas with the 660, what happens now is there's a single
... I call this a broker before and then I thought, well, maybe I should ask whether we're dealing with a middleman, but now that we're dealing with a portal, how is that not an abstract idea? Well, I suppose that if we limit it just to a portal, portal, you're the one that's arguing the gist of the patent. It's access. I don't agree that we look for the gist of a patent or the heart of a patent when we're conducting a section 101 analysis, trying to determine whether the claims are directed to an abstract idea. So now I'm going to buy your approach. I disagree with that. So if I look at what's the gist of your patent and you tell them it's a portal, then I say you've embraced an abstract idea. Well, your honor, if the patent said provide a portal, and apply it to the internet, that would be an abstract idea. Well, that's what you said. But, your honor, this patent is specific and has four steps that weren't implemented before the 616 invention. It requires the three computer systems, which your honor, I believe, are specialized and builds upon them with four steps that didn't exist in the fire. They're specialized because they only exist in the realm of merchant affiliate systems. It's not off the shelf, software. They're highly specialized
. There's three systems in place. Earlier, you had said specialized computers. You're walking away from that. Where in claim one does it talk about three specialized computers? You're talking about all this as if the claims actually say this, but I mean, as claim one representative, it seems like it's representative about your system, and it talks about configuring systems and adding URLs and things like that. Your honor, claim one is representative, and I can identify the three systems as we review the claim. There's four steps to the claim. The first claim is the virtual affiliate system will configure the existing merchant affiliate system. Now, before the patent, there is never a configuration of an existing merchant affiliate system. Rather merchant affiliate systems, assign codes to webmasters, and both the webmasters and the merchants were limited to that coding system. But now, with step one of the patents, when somebody goes to a certain webpage and clicks on a link to a merchant, that webmaster gets credits somehow for that click. I make it even more creditive a sale reserve. Is that right? Is that the basics of what's happening here? Yes, Your Honor, with one exception. Yes. The exception is, Your Honor is missing the fact that the webmaster never joined the system in your patent. That's correct, Your Honor
. Under this is simply a referral system. No, Your Honor, because the referral system is already in place. The merchant operates the referral system and has a system in place for tracking and receiving referrals. That system remains. The only difference is that now the webmaster is receiving many more referrals from webmasters that never signed up with it. It doesn't have to market, it doesn't have to direct its code to compatible systems. It simply operates an existing merchant affiliate. But the problem is that this referral system itself is an abstract idea. And so it fails under step one of Alice. You have to find something that takes us out of the abstract realm under step two of Alice. You're into your rebuttal time, but I'd like for you to pursue Judge Hughes' question. Let's move to step two of Alice and see if he can salvage the patent there. Thank you, Your Honor. The answer to your question is the patent does not claim tracking and receiving of referrals. The existing merchant affiliate system tracks and receives referrals, has always been able to, and will continue to, in the same way it always has
. This patent does not tie that up, does not preempt it, does not claim it. This patent claims providing access webmasters to the existing merchant affiliate system, which never occurred before, and it saves both the webmasters and the merchants, the administrative burden of signing up the application steps of the claim that are conventional or well known. No, Your Honor. The claim is not conventional and well known because before the 660, there was a different world in affiliate system technology, where webmasters signed up directly with hubs or direct merchants and had to adopt coding systems from multiple sources, whereas now there's only a single coding system in a single access point, the virtual affiliate pool system. Thank you. I'll add back to the in the bottle time, given the questions we were asking. Thank you very much. Mr. Franklin. Yes. That's correct. Now you've divided your time. Let's see here. So you have, oh, seven minutes, right? Correct. Okay. May it please the court. A point of associate has talked about access, but access is just the flip side of receiving referrals. And associate's patent is undeniably related to receiving referrals and tracking referrals from referral sources. East associate has merely applied that idea to the pre-existing technological environment of the internet with its pre-existing affiliate systems, which associates patent admits were commonplace on the internet. East associate may have moved some of the record keeping to a merchant middleman. Do you think that pre-existing affiliate system is patentable? No. It's just a computer that's been programmed to run a merchant's affiliate program. And not only is it not patentable, but it is a conventional part of the internet. The patent tells us that most merchants currently use some sort of affiliate system to run their affiliate program. And merely taking that conventional and pre-existing part of the internet and using it in the claims does not suffice to transform the nature of the claim to something that's not abstract. So here we've got an intermediary performing the electronic record keeping. That's not an inventive concept sufficient to transform the abstract idea to a patent eligible invention. And merely reorganizing the economic relationships so that the webmaster, instead of contracting directly with the merchant, instead contracts with the middleman, is merely a method of reorganizing human relationships, which under Alice is not patentable. Additionally, the patent really isn't directed to the idea of access. The patent talks about receiving the referrals
. May it please the court. A point of associate has talked about access, but access is just the flip side of receiving referrals. And associate's patent is undeniably related to receiving referrals and tracking referrals from referral sources. East associate has merely applied that idea to the pre-existing technological environment of the internet with its pre-existing affiliate systems, which associates patent admits were commonplace on the internet. East associate may have moved some of the record keeping to a merchant middleman. Do you think that pre-existing affiliate system is patentable? No. It's just a computer that's been programmed to run a merchant's affiliate program. And not only is it not patentable, but it is a conventional part of the internet. The patent tells us that most merchants currently use some sort of affiliate system to run their affiliate program. And merely taking that conventional and pre-existing part of the internet and using it in the claims does not suffice to transform the nature of the claim to something that's not abstract. So here we've got an intermediary performing the electronic record keeping. That's not an inventive concept sufficient to transform the abstract idea to a patent eligible invention. And merely reorganizing the economic relationships so that the webmaster, instead of contracting directly with the merchant, instead contracts with the middleman, is merely a method of reorganizing human relationships, which under Alice is not patentable. Additionally, the patent really isn't directed to the idea of access. The patent talks about receiving the referrals. And the end result of the patent claim, claim one, which is representative, is the generation of a URL, which is just a string of characters. The claim doesn't talk about what happens with that URL after it's generated. Additionally, webmasters were already able to access the merchant. You could always put a URL hyperlink on a web page and be able to link to Amazon.com or target.com or what have you. The issue was one of tracking for purposes of compensation. That's electronic record keeping, which as we know from Alice is not sufficient to transform the nature of the claim. So let's go through the steps of the claim. We start with the preamble, which merely identifies the referring webmasters, those are the virtual affiliates, and the referral recipient, which is the existing target affiliate system. These are commonplace participants on the internet. They're just people, the merchant and the webmaster. The configuring step merely configures the existing system, the existing affiliate system, to do what affiliate systems do, and that's receiving referrals. The subset of assigning IDs, again, that's just part of conventional electronic record keeping on the internet. The patent, not only does that just make common sense, but the patent tells us that unique ID numbers would have been apparent to those of skill in the art
. And the end result of the patent claim, claim one, which is representative, is the generation of a URL, which is just a string of characters. The claim doesn't talk about what happens with that URL after it's generated. Additionally, webmasters were already able to access the merchant. You could always put a URL hyperlink on a web page and be able to link to Amazon.com or target.com or what have you. The issue was one of tracking for purposes of compensation. That's electronic record keeping, which as we know from Alice is not sufficient to transform the nature of the claim. So let's go through the steps of the claim. We start with the preamble, which merely identifies the referring webmasters, those are the virtual affiliates, and the referral recipient, which is the existing target affiliate system. These are commonplace participants on the internet. They're just people, the merchant and the webmaster. The configuring step merely configures the existing system, the existing affiliate system, to do what affiliate systems do, and that's receiving referrals. The subset of assigning IDs, again, that's just part of conventional electronic record keeping on the internet. The patent, not only does that just make common sense, but the patent tells us that unique ID numbers would have been apparent to those of skill in the art. That's a column 11. And so here we're just talking about the assignment of ID numbers for electronic record keeping. The next step, the receiving. That's just using the internet for its conventional communication function. It's conventional to receive a URL. It's also conventional to receive a URL containing an ID. And we know that because the prior art system in the patent had an ID in the URL and conveying IDs in the URL, well, that's how the internet works. That's the pre-existing technological environment. The next step is correlating. Again, this is mundane record keeping, like the updating of the activity log in the ultimate virtual case. The specification talks about the lookup table that cross references two codes. And then finally, the generating step. This just uses conventional internet communication for its communication function. The prior art example already shows that URLs were used to convey ID codes. And once we've been through the steps of the claim, there's nothing left in the claim that would be sufficient to transform its nature into something that's patent eligible
. That's a column 11. And so here we're just talking about the assignment of ID numbers for electronic record keeping. The next step, the receiving. That's just using the internet for its conventional communication function. It's conventional to receive a URL. It's also conventional to receive a URL containing an ID. And we know that because the prior art system in the patent had an ID in the URL and conveying IDs in the URL, well, that's how the internet works. That's the pre-existing technological environment. The next step is correlating. Again, this is mundane record keeping, like the updating of the activity log in the ultimate virtual case. The specification talks about the lookup table that cross references two codes. And then finally, the generating step. This just uses conventional internet communication for its communication function. The prior art example already shows that URLs were used to convey ID codes. And once we've been through the steps of the claim, there's nothing left in the claim that would be sufficient to transform its nature into something that's patent eligible. And with that, I will reserve the main time for my co-counseless panel has any questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Your Honor. May it please the Court? We have eight minutes. I think I'll use two minutes. Maybe not quite that much. The Court asked whether or not the system was a broker. In effect, I think the Court was more correct later in the middleman. Really, this system that takes over the bookkeeping from the merchant so that they can do it all in this e-sociates computer instead of on the merchant's computer. In terms of the improved or specialized computer, I think the Supreme Court's been clear that when you program a general purpose computer to do normal general purpose functions, you're there. And I would refer the Court to the Blue Brief page 52. The existing merchant affiliate system is improved because webmasters, this is e-sociates, can now send it traffic, send, excuse me, it's traffic in exchange for compensation, even if the webmasters are enrolled in a different affiliate system. What that's telling you is that this invention, if there is a gist, is directed to the human relationships of where you've signed your contracts
. And with that, I will reserve the main time for my co-counseless panel has any questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Your Honor. May it please the Court? We have eight minutes. I think I'll use two minutes. Maybe not quite that much. The Court asked whether or not the system was a broker. In effect, I think the Court was more correct later in the middleman. Really, this system that takes over the bookkeeping from the merchant so that they can do it all in this e-sociates computer instead of on the merchant's computer. In terms of the improved or specialized computer, I think the Supreme Court's been clear that when you program a general purpose computer to do normal general purpose functions, you're there. And I would refer the Court to the Blue Brief page 52. The existing merchant affiliate system is improved because webmasters, this is e-sociates, can now send it traffic, send, excuse me, it's traffic in exchange for compensation, even if the webmasters are enrolled in a different affiliate system. What that's telling you is that this invention, if there is a gist, is directed to the human relationships of where you've signed your contracts. Are you going to sign them with the middleman, but then contracts with the merchants? Are you going to sign them? So if I run a cooking blog, and during the course of this cooking blog, I write articles about products that I suggest you buy. This is a good knife. This is a good wallhound. If I'm part of it, and I send, put a link to a certain merchant to go purchase this from. If I'm part of their affiliate system, I'm probably going to get credit when somebody reading my blog goes to this web system and buys it. But if I didn't belong to the affiliate system before this invention, I might not have. Is that basically what we're talking about? That's correct, Your Honor. So if you haven't signed up with the merchant, you can always put the hyperlink on your website, and it will always take you to the merchants. You can put amazon.com on any website that you want. Now, you might not get paid unless you sign up with the merchant. Or in this case, with this invention, if it is an invention, the idea is you'll sign up with the middleman. Isn't that what the invention is directed to to get paid, to get compensated, to ease that traffic? If we're going to look at the purpose of the invention, and you can see this throughout the patent, including the abstract, where it talks about that. That's why you've been saying computer specific or an internet specific problem that needed resolve. Well, I think when we look at what's internet specific, we look at the abstract idea first, and here what the claim is directed to and what it recites is the receipt of referrals, and then the tracking thereof
. Are you going to sign them with the middleman, but then contracts with the merchants? Are you going to sign them? So if I run a cooking blog, and during the course of this cooking blog, I write articles about products that I suggest you buy. This is a good knife. This is a good wallhound. If I'm part of it, and I send, put a link to a certain merchant to go purchase this from. If I'm part of their affiliate system, I'm probably going to get credit when somebody reading my blog goes to this web system and buys it. But if I didn't belong to the affiliate system before this invention, I might not have. Is that basically what we're talking about? That's correct, Your Honor. So if you haven't signed up with the merchant, you can always put the hyperlink on your website, and it will always take you to the merchants. You can put amazon.com on any website that you want. Now, you might not get paid unless you sign up with the merchant. Or in this case, with this invention, if it is an invention, the idea is you'll sign up with the middleman. Isn't that what the invention is directed to to get paid, to get compensated, to ease that traffic? If we're going to look at the purpose of the invention, and you can see this throughout the patent, including the abstract, where it talks about that. That's why you've been saying computer specific or an internet specific problem that needed resolve. Well, I think when we look at what's internet specific, we look at the abstract idea first, and here what the claim is directed to and what it recites is the receipt of referrals, and then the tracking thereof. So that is not a problem that occurs only on the internet. That's a problem that as the district court recognized is a fundamental economic practice, keeping track of who sending me referrals so that I can reward them later. Now, the need to sign up with particular systems is really ordering the relationships between the humans, not an internet specific problem, like a technical problem that's in, for example, the safe harbors in Alice. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Your Honor. Newman, you have firemitted. Thank you, Your Honor. The public policy underlying the exception, the section 101, abstract ideas, is that a patent cannot tie up an idea that's commonplace, such as hedging risk or intermediate settlements by simply saying apply to a computer. In this case, associates invention doesn't tie up anything. It doesn't tie up tracking and receiving of referrals. The merchant affiliate system did it before, and it will continue to do it in the same manner. Wouldn't it tie up the process of linking actors on the internet? No, Your Honor, that actors are linked because the webmaster before the invention would sign up with the merchant and continues to do that. In fact, this patent doesn't even tie up the idea of a virtual affiliate system. Another inventor could come along with a better process and provide access the same as associates, 60 patent just in a different way, and that perhaps would be patent-dollogable subject matter, and it would be better than the system. The system does not
. So that is not a problem that occurs only on the internet. That's a problem that as the district court recognized is a fundamental economic practice, keeping track of who sending me referrals so that I can reward them later. Now, the need to sign up with particular systems is really ordering the relationships between the humans, not an internet specific problem, like a technical problem that's in, for example, the safe harbors in Alice. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Your Honor. Newman, you have firemitted. Thank you, Your Honor. The public policy underlying the exception, the section 101, abstract ideas, is that a patent cannot tie up an idea that's commonplace, such as hedging risk or intermediate settlements by simply saying apply to a computer. In this case, associates invention doesn't tie up anything. It doesn't tie up tracking and receiving of referrals. The merchant affiliate system did it before, and it will continue to do it in the same manner. Wouldn't it tie up the process of linking actors on the internet? No, Your Honor, that actors are linked because the webmaster before the invention would sign up with the merchant and continues to do that. In fact, this patent doesn't even tie up the idea of a virtual affiliate system. Another inventor could come along with a better process and provide access the same as associates, 60 patent just in a different way, and that perhaps would be patent-dollogable subject matter, and it would be better than the system. The system does not. Why isn't this case basically on all fours with ultra-mercial? I mean, it's almost the same kind of idea. There it was, add on the internet, I think. This is referrals. It sounds like the similar kind of commercial activity that's adapted to the internet or environment, but is still an abstract idea. Your Honor, ultra-mercial was like commercials on television, but applied to the internet. The only distinction was the user was a lot of pick as commercial. But why isn't yours like referrals in the real world applied to the internet? Because this claim does not. The patent claims are not directed at referrals, but directed at access. Referrals existed before they were completely existing. You say that, but I mean, you read through the claims, you know, the parts of claim one, and it talks about configuring it to do this, sending a request, doing that. That all sounds to me like sending referrals back and forth and determining who gets compensated for them. The referral system is already in place. Associate's patent improves on it by allowing referrals from other sources. So, under ultra-merfell, yeah, but that's your problem. The referral system's abstract
. Why isn't this case basically on all fours with ultra-mercial? I mean, it's almost the same kind of idea. There it was, add on the internet, I think. This is referrals. It sounds like the similar kind of commercial activity that's adapted to the internet or environment, but is still an abstract idea. Your Honor, ultra-mercial was like commercials on television, but applied to the internet. The only distinction was the user was a lot of pick as commercial. But why isn't yours like referrals in the real world applied to the internet? Because this claim does not. The patent claims are not directed at referrals, but directed at access. Referrals existed before they were completely existing. You say that, but I mean, you read through the claims, you know, the parts of claim one, and it talks about configuring it to do this, sending a request, doing that. That all sounds to me like sending referrals back and forth and determining who gets compensated for them. The referral system is already in place. Associate's patent improves on it by allowing referrals from other sources. So, under ultra-merfell, yeah, but that's your problem. The referral system's abstract. It's not patentable. A referral system is abstract. I agree that a referral system is abstract. It's an abstract. Improving an abstract idea. I mean, you still have it convinced me that that's, you've improved it in a patentable way. You've just improved it in a way that doesn't require the person to be registered as part of the affiliate system, but the same could have been said for an in-person affiliate system. You're under ultra-mercial, where that patent to survive, then it would be impossible to offer content in exchange for advertising. Here, it's still possible to offer referrals in every context, even within the context of an affiliate program. The referral system is abstract and you're given access to referrals. Then aren't you preempting the entire referral field? No, Your Honor. I would challenge my friends on the other side to come up with any idea that's commonplace that could not be practiced if the associate 660 patent were survived. What can you tell me that it relates to DDR? This is similar to DDR. In DDR, users would go to a website and they'd click on a link. Traditionally, those users would be redirected to another website, a merchants website, just like here
. It's not patentable. A referral system is abstract. I agree that a referral system is abstract. It's an abstract. Improving an abstract idea. I mean, you still have it convinced me that that's, you've improved it in a patentable way. You've just improved it in a way that doesn't require the person to be registered as part of the affiliate system, but the same could have been said for an in-person affiliate system. You're under ultra-mercial, where that patent to survive, then it would be impossible to offer content in exchange for advertising. Here, it's still possible to offer referrals in every context, even within the context of an affiliate program. The referral system is abstract and you're given access to referrals. Then aren't you preempting the entire referral field? No, Your Honor. I would challenge my friends on the other side to come up with any idea that's commonplace that could not be practiced if the associate 660 patent were survived. What can you tell me that it relates to DDR? This is similar to DDR. In DDR, users would go to a website and they'd click on a link. Traditionally, those users would be redirected to another website, a merchants website, just like here. But under DDR, they'd click on that link. They'd remain in the same website, which retains the same look and feel, but they are able to buy products from the merchant. It recreated that website. Essentially. In this case, that same unconventional result occurs. When a user clicks on a link at the Webmaster, rather than being directed to a merchant affiliate system using the merchant affiliate systems code, it is directed to the virtual affiliate system where there's a correlation and generating a URL that is functional in the merchant system so that the Webmaster can send traffic before a Webmaster could not send traffic without configuring its own system to comply with the system that the merchant provided. Now, the Webmaster need not do that. The Webmaster only needs a single code from a single source and does not need to configure its system to work with several other systems, but rather a single system, the virtual affiliate system. And so, unlike Bill Skier, Alice, where there is an idea that we're all familiar with and simply apply it in a technological field or apply it on the internet or apply it to a computer, this is a process for access that never existed before and doesn't create anything. But rather receiving and tracking of referrals and electronic bookkeeping has always been around. I always will be around. Can continue. Associate Patent doesn't claim that. It's directed at providing Webmaster's with access to an existing merchant affiliate system without having to join that system. Thank you
. Okay, thank you very much for your audience