MediaPost: iProspect Announces Patent In Response To Overture Product Launch

iProspect rushed a patent application out the door six days ago when word got out that Overture was about to announce yesterday's launch of its Search Optimizer tool. iProspect claims it invented certain ideas pertaining to treating search word campaign management like a stock portfolio. But when the Patent & Trademark Office examiner does a Google search to start off his checking for prior art, he or she may find a lot of similar sounding material - first among them the launch a couple months ago of Efficient Frontier, a company organized around the principle of treating search word campaigns like stock portfolios. Even if Efficient Frontier, or others, did not implement specific features of the iProspect claims, their mere presence indicates that the industry considers many of these concepts to have been obvious for many months.