CrakRevenue Wins Appeal in 'Virtual Affiliate' Patent Fight

CrakRevenue Wins Appeal in 'Virtual Affiliate' Patent Fight

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has sided with CPA network CrakRevenue’s parent company in a patent dispute over “virtual affiliates.”

On Friday, an appeals panel agreed with a federal court’s decision to invalidate a patent that works with methods and systems used for configuring an existing affiliate network to receive “virtual affiliates” from an affiliate pooling network.

Patent holder Essociate Inc. sued CrakMedia, CrakRevenue’s parent company, and mainstream CPA company Clickbooth three years ago for patent infringement over the employment of U.S. Patent No. 6,804,660, a process that allows a merchant to avoid or reduce competition while also allowing it to track which and how many customers the referring entity directs to the merchant.

The suit was one of numerous patent infringement claims filed by Essociate against numerous affiliate networks dating back to 2009. Essociate is led by co-founders Evan Horowitz and Michael Landau.

The lower court judge who heard the case said in his original ruling that “mathematical algorithms, including those executed on a generic computer, are abstract ideas” and rejected Essociate’s contentions that its patent was valid. Implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer is not patentable.

The  judge agreed with CrakMedia and ClickBooth’s contention that the steps in the underlying patent simply embody the fundamental economic practice of receiving and tracking referrals from referral sources, and providing incentives to those referral sources — both concepts that involve the “mere formation and manipulation of economic relations.”

The judge further ruled that Essociate’s patent does nothing more than seek to limit the use of the abstract idea of receiving and tracking referrals from referral sources to the technological environment of an existing affiliate system. 

Essociate appealed the case, and on Friday a Federal Circuit panel ruled for CrakMedia and ClickBooth, affirming the lower court’s ruling.

CrakRevenue's founder and CEO, Nicolas Chretien, said of the decision: “It’s a big day for us. We fought for something we believed in, although a settlement would have certainly been less costly than litigation, we couldn’t let patent trolls continue to bully us and others in our industry.”

“We can now focus on the goal we set four years ago: centralize all the industry’s top offers with the CrakRevenue network.”

Related:  

Copyright © 2025 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More News

Texas Resumes AV Lawsuit Against Aylo Following SCOTUS Decision

A district court judge in Texas has unfrozen the state’s $1.6 million lawsuit against Aylo for allegedly failing to comply with age verification requirements, Bloomberg Law is reporting.

JuicyAds Wins Trademark Infringement Case Against Fraudulent Domain

JuicyAds has won its World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) case against a website using a similar domain to impersonate the company's site and defraud customers.

Anissa Kate, Jordan Starr Top AEBN for Q2 of 2025

AEBN has published its top-selling stars for the second quarter of 2025, with Anissa Kate landing atop the leaderboard for straight theaters and Jordan Starr heading up the gay rankings.

AEBN Reveals Eva Maxim as Top Trans Star for Q2 of 2025

AEBN has published its top trans stars list for the second quarter of 2025, with Eva Maxim landing atop the leaderboard.

France Reinstates Age Verification Rule for EU Sites

France’s highest court, the Council of State, on Tuesday reinstated age verification rules for EU-based sites under the country’s Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law, ruling in favor of the French government and against Hammy Media.

Whisper Fans Joins Pineapple Support as Supporter-Level Sponsor

Whisper Fans has joined the ranks of over 70 adult businesses and organizations committing funds and resources to Pineapple Support.

Utherverse Launches 'Red Light Center' Virtual World

Virtual reality and metaverse technology company Utherverse has launched its new virtual world, RedLightCenter.io.

European Commission Approves AV Guidelines, Unveils Prototype App

The European Commission on Monday released its final, approved guidelines for protecting minors online under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and made public a “white label” age verification app intended to help sites and platforms comply with age verification rules under the DSA.

Show More