Pop-under patents

Pop-under ads are almost ubiquitous in the online advertising industry – companies such as Yahoo and DoubleClick use them extensively. However, if a US company by the name of ExitExchange has its way, businesses using this method may soon be forced

Pop-under ads are almost ubiquitous in the online advertising industry – companies such as Yahoo and DoubleClick use them extensively. However, if a US company by the name of ExitExchange has its way, businesses using this method may soon be forced to pay for the privilege.

According to this article, ExitExchange is claiming patents on pop-under technology – specifically, any system causing a document window to open upon load completion of a parent window.

Currently the patent is still awaiting a final ruling. However, last week the US Patent and Trademark Office published ExitExchange's application. Under US law, if ExitExchange's pop-under patent were granted by the USPTO at some point in the future, companies using the method would be liable for fees backdated to the original date of publication.