ExitExchange was founded in 1999 to develop and licence pop-under advertising. It last week announced that its patent application covering all forms of pop-under advertising was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office on 14th February 2002.
The company hopes to exploit the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999, which came into force in November 2000 to justify a claim for royalties from February 2002, even though the patent has not yet been granted.
The Act was passed to allow an inventor to publish a patent application before the patent has been approved, and to notify anyone who appears to be copying the idea that the invention is in the patent process. US patent applications were not published prior to the Act coming into force.
Upon approval of the patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office, an inventor can rely on the 1999 Act to seek infringement damages for the period since the date of publication. Prior to November 2000, the inventor could not back-date the infringement action. The period between publication and approval is typically around 18 months.
ExitExchange claims that “pop-under ads have become the most effective form of advertising on the web today, and are reviving a sluggish internet advertising market. Highly trafficked sites including Yahoo!, AltaVista and Hotmail are now offering pop-under advertising campaigns at a premium to their advertising customers.”