The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 15, 2007
Filed:
Nov. 19, 2003
Brendan Clarke Fields, Bellevue, WA (US);
Karim Michel Batthish, Seattle, WA (US);
Yuriy Mikhailovich Inglikov, Bellevue, WA (US);
Jorge Pereira, Seattle, WA (US);
Brendan Clarke Fields, Bellevue, WA (US);
Karim Michel Batthish, Seattle, WA (US);
Yuriy Mikhailovich Inglikov, Bellevue, WA (US);
Jorge Pereira, Seattle, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
Disclosed is a policy based method for blocking the automatic dereferencing of web beacon links in an e-mail message sent in HTML format with a minimum sacrifice in the HTML body rendering quality. HTML content that potentially contains web beacons is replaced with non-dereferencing elements prior to HTML rendering by the e-mail browser so that the remaining HTML can be rendered as complete as possible without rendering the potential web beacons. Additionally, the present invention also provides a method for removing the HTTP Referer header from referenced external links and activated images. An HTTP redirector service is implemented as a server-based link redirection evaluator application which serves to eliminate the Referer header for the URL requested. Embodiments of the present invention provide for blocking web beacons and removing HTTP Referer headers in both a 'down-level' e-mail client and a client which can make programmatic use of an HTML rendering engine.