Providing navigation objects for communications over a network

Abstract

Communications between participants over a communications link are proxied by an intermediary, such as an Integrated Order Mechanism (IOM). Participants interact with each other through the IOM. The IOM may be transparent to the participants such that they are not aware that the IOM is involved in processing communications. For example, in the context of a transaction by a customer making a purchase from a merchant over the Internet, the IOM facilitates the processing of transactions by processing requests from both the customer and the merchant. Neither the customer nor the merchant may be aware that the transactions are being handled by the IOM. Navigation objects may be provided for the communications over a network. For example, a navigation bar may be included on a merchant web page to provide the customer with a link back to a shopping application provided by the IOM.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This Application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 747,656, filed Dec. 22, 2000, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.[0002]U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 747,656 is also related to the following U.S. patent applications, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 747,666, filed Dec. 22, 2000, entitled “TRACKING TRANSACTIONS BY USING ADDRESSES IN A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK,” now U.S. Pat. No. 7,349,867 B2 (issued Mar. 25, 2008); and (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 747,651, filed Dec. 22, 2000, entitled “PRE-FILLING ORDER FORMS FOR TRANSACTIONS OVER A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK,” now U.S. Pat. No. 7,363,248 B2 (issued Apr. 22, 2008).FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention relates generally to processing transactions over a communications link, and relates more specifically to an approach for providing nav...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

One problem with conventional approaches for processing orders over the Internet, such as just described, is the difficulty or inability for customers to return easily to a shopping application after having been transferred from the application to a merchant web site.

Furthermore, customers cannot use the back button to return to the shopping application web page when so-called redirect URLs are used to cause a web browser to load a different web page than the requested web page.

In these situations, the “chain” of links used to access the merchant web page is “broken” and selecting the back button will not return the customer to the shopping application.

Hence, customers may be unable to return to a shopping application from a merchant site, or may only be capable of doing so via the repeated use of a web browser's back button.

Either of these situations can deter customers from returning to a merchant web site.

Another problem with conventional approaches for processing orders over the Internet relates to the payment of commissions to shopping applications and portals.

This necessitates tracking the origination of transactions to particular shopping applications or portals, which can be difficult.

Once the user is at the merchant's web site, the shopping application does not know what, if anything, the customer buys at the merchant web site.

In this situation, the shopping application does not know whether it is entitled to a commission for directing the customer to that particular merchant.

Although this approach allows merchants to definitively track the origination of transactions, there are two significant drawbacks.

First, this solution requires that merchants customize their web sites, which is costly and time consuming for the merchants.

Second, this solution requires that shopping application providers trust that merchants will properly account for the origination of transactions.

This approach leaves to shopping applications the determination of where transactions originated, which is undesirable to many merchants since they must trust the shopping applications to correctly assign commissions.

This approaches leaves the tracking of commissions in the hands of merchants, which is undesirable to many shopping applications since they must trust the merchants to correctly assign commissions.

In either situation, a considerable burden is placed on merchants to implement tracer image technology into their web site infrastructure, which is costly and time consuming.

Yet another problem with conventional approaches for processing orders over the Internet relates to completing order forms required by merchants to process a transaction.

Therefore, a customer may have to spend considerable time providing or accessing the same basic information over and over for each purchase even if they are not from different merchants.

Images