Patent ID: 8051178

Claim:
A co-browsing system, comprising: (a) a network comprising an interconnected web server computer, vendor computer, and customer computer; (b) a standard web site hosted at said web server, accessible by said customer computer, and comprising a plurality of standard web pages; (c) a customer co-browsing web site hosted at said web server, accessible by said customer computer, and comprising a plurality of customer co-browsing web pages, wherein each of said customer co-browsing web pages is identical in appearance from a customer's point of view to one of said standard web pages, and said customer co-browsing web site further comprises a polling routine operable to repeatedly initiate a polling request to said vendor computer for change events transmitted from said vendor computer while both said customer co-browsing web site is accessed at said customer computer and the standard web site is being accessed; (d) a vendor co-browsing web site hosted at said web server, accessible by said vendor computer, and comprising a plurality of vendor co-browsing web pages, wherein at least one of said vendor co-browsing web pages corresponds to one of said customer co-browsing web pages, and wherein said vendor co-browsing web site comprises an event handler operable to collect and transmit vendor co-browsing web site change events received from said vendor computer to said customer computer in order to synchronize a currently accessed vendor co-browsing web page with a currently accessed customer co-browsing web page, wherein said vendor co-browsing web site change events each comprise a change event identifier that identifies a control on said vendor co-browsing web page that has changed, and a change event value that identifies the new value of the control on said vendor co-browsing web page that has changed; and (e) a data store in communication with said vendor co-browsing web site, wherein said data store is operable to store said vendor co-browsing web site change events.