Open.window Reloads Parent Window

When I do the following line in Netscape, the popup loads as it should,
but the parent window usually, but not always, reloads as well.

<a href="#"
onClick="window.open('/cgi-bin/displayimage.cgi?/store/demo/image.jpg&YOUR+PRODUCT%27<b>S+NAME+GOES',
'fullimage', 'WIDTH=420,HEIGHT=405,status=0')">

The original window should not reload, but is, and I have tested it with
both version 4.72 and 7.02, and they both do it. IE does not do it.
The big problem is that the original window has security built into it
so it must be called from the right referring url, but when Netscape
reloads this parent window, it neglects to send the original referring
url, so the original page is replaced with an error page as soon as the
above link is clicked.

Is there any workaround for this, where either Netscape will not reload
the original page, or if it does, at least not lose the referring url?