# US 8,543,449 B2 · System and method for estimating available payload inventory > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 8,543,449 B2 - Document ID: US8543449B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 09/943,609 - Filed: 2001-08-29 - Published: 2003-03-06 - Granted: 2013-09-24 - Earliest claimed: 2001-08-29 - Assignees: Microsoft Corporation - Applicants: Jeffery C. Beman; Alan S. Geller; Ashis K. Roy; Lawrence A. Koch - Inventors: Jeffery C. Beman; Alan S. Geller; Ashis K. Roy; Lawrence A. Koch - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US8543449B2 ## CPC - G06Q 10/08: Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management - G06Q 10/087: Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders - G06Q 10/08726: {for replenishment processing, procedures, or recommendations using forecasting or optimisation} - G06Q 30/02: Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising - G06Q 30/0244: {Optimization} - G06Q: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR ## Abstract A system and method for estimating available payload inventory are provided. An advertisement delivery system generates a set of atomic market segment arrays from target market criteria for one or more advertisement campaigns to be served. The set of arrays is incremented corresponding to advertisement requests matching the target market criteria. The atomic market segment is processed to select an advertisement and to predict future capacity and manage inventory. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A method for estimating appropriate advertisement inventory, the method comprising: obtaining one or more advertisement target market segment criteria from an advertiser for delivering at least one advertisement; utilizing a first computing process, generating a target market segment array corresponding to each of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria wherein each target market segment array includes a plurality of array elements, each array element corresponding to a period of time; obtaining an advertisement request from one of a user and a content provider, the advertisement request including one or more target market data elements, and the advertisement request being associated with a time increment; upon determining that at least one of the one or more target market data elements corresponds to a particular one of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria obtained from the advertiser, incrementing a numerical identifier in one or more of the plurality of array elements corresponding to the time increment and included in the target market segment array that corresponds to the particular one of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria, utilizing a second computing process; processing, utilizing a third computing process, a plurality of numerical identifiers stored in array elements corresponding to the increment of time incremented in association with the one or more target market segment arrays to determine appropriate advertisement inventory at a particular time; providing the plurality of numerical identifiers and the one or more target market segment arrays to an advertisement processing component; and determining, using a fourth computing process, an inventory of advertisements at the processing component based on the plurality of numerical identifiers and the one or more target market segment arrays, wherein the first, second, third, and fourth computing processes are performed by one or more computing devices. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The method as recited in claim 1, wherein generating a target market segment array corresponding to each of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes: parsing the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria in a particular order; and generating the target market segment arrays in an order corresponding to the particular order of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the processing of the plurality of numerical identifiers includes applying a trend analysis. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the trend analysis includes a least-squared trend analysis. ### Claim 5 (depends on 3) The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the trend analysis includes a linear regression trend analysis. ### Claim 6 (depends on 3) The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the trend analysis includes a set theory trend analysis. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the at least one advertisement is from an advertisement campaign. ### Claim 8 (depends on 7) The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes user demographic information. ### Claim 9 (depends on 8) The method as recited in claim 8, wherein the user demographic information includes a user age. ### Claim 10 (depends on 8) The method as recited in claim 8, wherein the user demographic information includes a user gender. ### Claim 11 (depends on 7) The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes one or more keywords. ### Claim 12 (depends on 7) The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes an identifier of a target content provider. ### Claim 13 (depends on 1) The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the numerical identifier corresponds to the time associated with the advertisement request. ### Claim 14 (depends on 13) The method as recited in claim 13, wherein each of the plurality of array elements is representative of a 1-hour time increment. ### Claim 15 A computerized advertisement delivery system embodied on one or more computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for processing advertisement requests, the advertisement requests each being associated with one or more target market data elements, the system comprising: an advertisement client component operable to obtain one or more advertisement target market segment criteria from an advertiser for delivering at least one advertisement and generating a target market segment array corresponding to each of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria, wherein each target market segment array includes a plurality of array elements, each array element corresponding to a period of time, the advertisement client component further operable to obtain an advertisement request from one of a user and a content provider, the advertisement request including one or more target market data elements, and increment a numerical identifier in one or more of the plurality of array elements corresponding to a time associated with the advertisement request; an advertisement processing component operable to: (1) parse an advertisement associated with the advertisement request, (2) increment a plurality of atomic market segment array elements indicating a time increment corresponding to a time the advertiser requested the advertisement, and (3) estimate available advertisement inventory based on the target market segment array corresponding to each of the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria for delivering the at least one advertisement; and an advertisement manager component operable to obtain atomic market segment data by evaluating the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria using the target market segment arrays and to process the atomic market segment data for at least one of capacity planning and inventory management. ### Claim 16 (depends on 15) The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the advertisement manager component is operable to generate advertisement campaign compliance data by processing the atomic market segment data. ### Claim 17 (depends on 15) The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the at least one advertisement is from an advertisement campaign. ### Claim 18 (depends on 17) The system as recited in claim 17, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes user demographic information. ### Claim 19 (depends on 18) The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the user demographic information includes a user age. ### Claim 20 (depends on 18) The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the user demographic information includes a user gender. ### Claim 21 (depends on 15) The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes one or more keywords. ### Claim 22 (depends on 15) The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes an identifier of a target content provider. ### Claim 23 (depends on 15) The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the advertisement manager component is operable to generate future advertisement data and advertisement request capacity data by processing the atomic market segment data. ### Claim 24 (depends on 23) The system as recited in claim 23, wherein the advertisement manager component generates future inventory advertisement data by applying a forecasting method. ### Claim 25 (depends on 24) The system as recited in claim 24, wherein the forecasting method includes a least-squared trend analysis. ### Claim 26 (depends on 24) The system as recited in claim 24, wherein the forecasting method includes a linear regression trend analysis. ### Claim 27 (depends on 24) The system as recited in claim 24, wherein the forecasting method includes a set theory trend analysis. ### Claim 28 (depends on 1) The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the plurality of array elements includes 168 array elements. ### Claim 29 One or more computer-storage media having computer-executable components embodied thereon that, when executed by a computing device, perform a method for estimating available advertisement inventory, the computer-storage medium comprising: a payload processing component operable to obtain one or more advertisement target market segment criteria corresponding to an advertisement request and generate one or more target market segment arrays corresponding to each advertisement target market segment criterion, wherein each target market segment array includes a plurality of array elements corresponding to periods of time, wherein the payload processing component is further operable to obtain an advertisement request associated with a time, the advertisement request including one or more target market data elements, and wherein the payload processing component is further operable to increment a numerical identifier in the plurality of array elements corresponding to the time associated with the advertisement request; and a payload manager, the payload manager computing a linear regression to evaluate the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria using the one or more target market segment arrays and to process data within the one or more target market segment arrays to estimate available advertisement inventory. ### Claim 30 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein the advertisement request is associated with an advertisement from an advertisement campaign. ### Claim 31 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes user demographic information. ### Claim 32 (depends on 31) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 31, wherein the user demographic information includes a user age. ### Claim 33 (depends on 32) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 32, wherein the user demographic information includes a user gender. ### Claim 34 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes one or more keywords. ### Claim 35 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein the one or more advertisement target market segment criteria includes an identifier of a target content provider. ### Claim 36 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, further comprising a user information component operable to obtain a user identifier and provide user identifier criteria to the one or more target market data elements. ### Claim 37 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein each target market segment array includes 168 array elements. ### Claim 38 (depends on 37) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 37, wherein each of the plurality of array elements is representative of a 1-hour time increment. ### Claim 39 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein the payload manager is operable to generate future payload and request capacity data by processing data within the one or more target market segment arrays. ### Claim 40 (depends on 39) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 39, wherein the payload manager generates future inventory payload data by applying a forecasting method. ### Claim 41 (depends on 40) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 40, wherein the forecasting method includes a least-squared trend analysis. ### Claim 42 (depends on 40) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 40, wherein the forecasting method includes a linear regression trend analysis. ### Claim 43 (depends on 40) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 40, wherein the forecasting method includes a set theory trend analysis. ### Claim 44 (depends on 29) The one or more computer-storage media as recited in claim 29, wherein the payload manager is operable to generate advertisement campaign compliance data by processing data within the one or more target market segment arrays.