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Systems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data using biometricsRelated Patent Categories: Electrical Computers And Digital Processing Systems: Multicomputer Data Transferring, Computer Network Managing, Computer Network MonitoringSystems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data using biometrics description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070276940, Systems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data using biometrics. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
[0001] Priority is claimed to copending U.S. Non-Provisional application Ser. No. 09/532,890 filed on Mar. 22, 2000, and U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60/355,785, filed on Feb. 12, 2002 and 60/353,993, filed on Feb. 5, 2002, the entirety of each being herein incorporated by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1) Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to systems and methods useful in identifying a computer user and the user's demographic and other user specific information from his or her activities on the computer, particularly from the user's activities on a network, as well as differentiating between user requested data and automatically generated data. [0004] 2) Brief Description of the Related Art [0005] Knowing the actual identity of a computer user can be invaluable for many reasons. As explained herein below, when a user accesses the Internet, for example, identification information relating to the computer or the software may be available over the network, and user input information, such as a login name, might be available at times. However, this information may not identify the actual user and user identification does not always accompany requests for webpages, and the like. Even when user identification information is provided in a communication, such as when using AOL and CompuServe, this information is generally limited to a user's e-mail address or a user name, rather than an actual name or user's identity. Sometimes a user-defined profile is available as well. However, this limited information is not available and does not often provide enough useful information about the user, particularly when the user may have multiple accounts each with their own distinct user-defined profile, for instance. It is particularly disadvantageous when trying to derive user demographic information for market research. [0006] The granularity of market research largely depends on the accuracy of the consumer demographics being reported with the consumer's market activities. [0007] Consumer decision-making has been a focus for many years. Companies that are attempting to meet a particular need in the marketplace, or that are attempting to find out how products or services are being received by the consumer, will often conduct market research to attempt to quantify attributes or characteristics of a particular consumer segment. If performed well, the data extracted from this research can inform companies about how their and others' products or services are perceived and bought by purchasers or potential purchasers in the marketplace, and how the companies' products or services can be changed to achieve the companies' business goals. [0008] Traditionally, this information is segregated into demographic categories, such as age, gender, martial status, income bracket, education level, etc. A problem common to general protocols for performing consumer-oriented market research is collating consumers' activities and spending habits to the consumers' demographic profiles. Surveys, whether in person, by mail or the Internet, usually include inquiries about a person's relevant demographic information when inquiring about the person's buying habits and/or the market research information. However, for Internet-activity monitoring, the process of asking the user to provide this information is cumbersome. [0009] Internet-activity monitoring includes a server-side consumer data collection strategy in which an individual Internet content provider ("website") monitors and collects data about each consumer who has requested data from ("visited") the website, and then compiles this data about all the consumers who have visited that website. [0010] Alternatively, or additionally, data collection directly from an Internet consumer's computer has also been proposed, i.e., client-side data collection. Such systems commonly involve installing a software application onto the consumer's computer, which operates at the same time as Internet browser application software. The software then collects data about the consumer's Internet usage, e.g., which websites the consumer has visited. The data is then uploaded to a data-collecting computer on the Internet. [0011] Yet another strategy is to have the user's Internet-activity pass through an intermediary domain having server or servers which monitor all of a user's activities by tracking and filtering the requests and replies between the user and content providing servers and proxy servers, as detailed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/532,890, filed Mar. 22, 2000, herein incorporated by reference. [0012] A challenge for each of server-side, client side and intermediary server-side systems is to collect and relate data about the consumer, such as age, income level, marital status, and other demographic, economic, and personal information to the user's activities, which would allow the data to be compared with consumer databases from other sources, without noticeably affecting the user's experience. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0013] According to a first exemplary implementation, a method of collecting data relating to a user's usage, including transactions, over a network typically includes the user utilizing a computing device to send and receive data sets over the network, the computing device having an address on the network, the data sets including data representative of the address of the computing device on the network, comprising: directing all data sets from the computing device to a known domain; assigning a unique identifier to the computing device using a data field in an HTTP request header; readdressing data sets sent from the computing device to indicate that the data sets originated in the known domain; recording at least part of the data sets; and sending the readdressed data onto the network. [0014] According to a second exemplary implementation, a method the user is identified from a group of users by either or both her keystroke dynamics or by monitoring for keywords upon which a user demographic dictionary is built. [0015] According to a third exemplary implementation, a method wherein user requested content is differentiated from automatically generated or server side directed content. [0016] Still other features, and attendant advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a reading of the following detailed description of implementations constructed in accordance therewith, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0017] The invention of the present application will now be described in more detail with reference to preferred implementations of the apparatus and method, given only by way of example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings. [0018] FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a prior network configuration. [0019] FIG. 2 schematically illustrates an exemplary implementation of a system. [0020] FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a portion of the system illustrated in FIG. 2. [0021] FIGS. 4, 4A, 4B and 5 diagrammatically illustrate flowcharts of steps of methods, as further described below. Continue reading about Systems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data using biometrics... Full patent description for Systems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data using biometrics Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Systems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data using biometrics patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. 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