Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Including point of sale terminal or electronic cash register
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-01
2001-11-27
Trammell, James P. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Including point of sale terminal or electronic cash register
C705S028000, C700S231000, C700S232000, C700S238000, C700S244000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06324520
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to dispensing devices and relates more specifically to a dispensing device, such as a vending machine, that monitors and uses product demand and inventory information to increase product sales.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Vending machines are well known and have existed since the late 1880s. The first vending machines were rudimentary devices primarily designed to dispense cigarettes and postcards. Modern vending machines are employed to store and dispense a vast array of merchandise and/or offer various services in response to a customer request accompanied by appropriate payment. Examples of merchandise dispensed by such machines include drinks, candy, frozen deserts, snacks, video tapes and children's toys. Examples of services offered include automated car washes, portrait photographs, laundry machines, television viewing and blood pressure monitoring.
Many entrepreneurs are attracted to the basic concept of selling products and services using a vending machine. Vending machines are generally considered to have significant advantages over traditional merchandising. Specifically, vending machines enable the automated sale of merchandise and services at unconventional locations and times, and they do not require sales personnel.
Although the basic advantages of vending machines are significant, prior art vending machines have several significant disadvantages when compared to traditional merchandising, particularly relating to inventory control and pricing. A first disadvantage is the difficulty of maintaining an inventory of perishable items. A second disadvantage is the difficulty of selling or “turning over” an inventory of low demand items and services or items with inferior quality. Although some vending machine suppliers offer to buy back inventory from operators who no longer want to sell certain products, such suppliers often fail to live up to their offer when an operator tries to exercise this option.
There have been many attempts at addressing the inventory problems of vending machines, including methods for determining what products and services are the most popular, what are the appropriate times to re-stock vending machine items and in what quantities. The solutions include methods and systems that enable vending machine operators to remotely monitor inventory and remotely retrieve sales data. Other solutions have been proposed in the forms of accounting software and bar code readers that detect the expiration dates of vending machine items. Further solutions are disclosed in commonly-owned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/012,163 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY VENDING A COMBINATION OF PRODUCTS” filed on Jan. 22, 1998 in the name of Daniel E. Tedesco, James A. Jorasch, Jay S. Walker and Robert R. Lech and commonly-owned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/947,798 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DYNAMICALLY MANAGING VENDING MACHINE INVENTORY PRICES” filed on Oct. 9, 1997 in the name of Daniel E. Tedesco, James A. Jorasch and Robert R. Lech, both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Examples of vending machine patent prior art that attempt to solve the problems identified above include: U.S. Pat. No. 4,412,292, entitled “System for the Remote Monitoring of Vending Machines;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,800, entitled “Control and Monitoring Apparatus for Vending Machines;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,713, entitled “Inventory, Cash, Security, and Maintenance Control Apparatus and Method for a Plurality of Remote Vending Machines;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,452, entitled “Mobile Merchandising Business Management System which Provides Comprehensive Support Services for Transportable Business Operations;” and U.S. Pat. No. 4,282,575, entitled “Control and Monitoring Apparatus for Vending Machines.” These inventions generally disclose remote monitoring systems, currency control systems, and data collection systems designed to address shortcomings of prior art vending devices.
Non-patent prior art includes VendMaster's software product entitled “Windows for Vending PRO with Inventory.” This product enables a vending machine operator to report and analyze various historical sales data. VendMaster's product is intended to enhance a vending machine operator's ability to identify high-demand inventory, determine preferable times to stock the machine and calculate suggested prices.
These solutions fail to adequately address certain shortcomings of present vending machines. Specifically, the prior art fails to provide adequate solutions to the problem of satisfying customer demand when a desired product or service is unavailable. Using the prior art solutions, an operator may use collected supply and demand data to help determine suitable alternate products, but the fact that operators must manually ratify and implement the decisions renders these solutions burdensome, inaccurate and inefficient. These solutions are inefficient because human decisions and the implementations of those decisions are not dynamically responsive to real-time market pressures. They are delayed until the operator analyzes supply and demand data, arrives at a decision, and adjusts the machine accordingly.
A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus that monitors demand of a vending machine inventory and that dynamically and automatically determines substitute products or services to offer in order to increase a vending machine's profitability.
Accordingly, the shortcomings associated with the related art have heretofore not been adequately addressed. The present invention addresses such problems by providing methods and apparatus that have not previously been proposed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for monitoring sales and determining substitute products and/or services to offer when a selected product and/or service is unavailable. According to a first aspect of the present invention, a method and apparatus is disclosed for dispensing a substitute product by receiving a selection of a first product from a purchaser. If the first product is not available, a substitute product identifier corresponding to a substitute product is retrieved and the substitute product is offered to the purchaser.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, a method and apparatus is disclosed for dispensing a substitute product by measuring a demand for each of a plurality of products and, in turn, determining from the demand a substitute product for a first product. A substitute product identifier corresponding to the substitute product is stored for the first product.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, a method and apparatus is disclosed for dispensing a substitute product by determining an average selection time. After a purchaser is detected, a time from the detection of the purchaser is measured. If the time is greater than or equal to the average selection time, a first product is offered to the purchaser.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, a method and apparatus is disclosed for measuring a demand of an unavailable product offered by a dispensing device by receiving a selection of a product and determining the availability of the product. If the product is unavailable, an indication that the selected product is unavailable is stored.
Further embodiments and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: Re. 29450 (1977-10-01), Goldsby et al.
patent: 3705384 (1972-12-01), Wahlberg
patent: 3747733 (1973-07-01), Knickerbocker
patent: 4258837 (1981-03-01), Manos et al.
patent: 4282575 (1981-08-01), Hoskinson et al.
patent: 4316532 (1982-02-01), Levasseur
patent: 4359147 (1982-11-01), Levasseur
patent: 4376479 (1983-03-01), Sugimoto et al.
patent: 4412292 (1983-10-01), Sedam et al.
patent: 4420751 (1983-12-01), Paganini et al.
patent: 4478353 (1984-10-01), Levasseur
patent:
Packes, Jr. John M.
Tedesco Daniel E.
Walker Jay S.
Alderucci Dean P.
Hayes John W.
Trammell James P.
Walker Digital, LLC
LandOfFree
Method and apparatus for collecting and applying vending... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method and apparatus for collecting and applying vending..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method and apparatus for collecting and applying vending... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2609049