Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Electronic shopping
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-17
2001-05-29
Millin, Vincent (Department: 2164)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Electronic shopping
C705S026640, C705S014270
Reexamination Certificate
active
06240397
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to the field of transferring, receiving and utilizing electronic gift certificates, and more particularly, to methods for transferring, receiving and utilizing electronic gift certificates over the Internet.
2. Description of Related Prior Art
A conventional gift certificate is a printed piece of paper that includes the value of the certificate and the stores or stores at which the gift certificate can be redeemed for merchandise. Employers and others often use it when they do not want to purchase an item that may not be favorably received by the intended recipient.
An e-mail gift certificate works much like a conventional gift certificate. It has a printed denomination value and its graphic image is transferred over the Internet to the designated recipient. The recipient can then redeem the certificate at any participating merchant. Such a gift certificate forces the sender and the recipient to:
a) disclose the exact amount of money the sender is “willing” to spend on the recipient.
b) choose only from products or services available from the participating merchant.
It is widely known that a disclosed price or a cash gift reduces the value of a gift to plain dollars and cents, i.e., it “cheapens” the gift by associating a specific dollar value thereto which is maximum the giver is willing to spend on the recipient. Unfortunately, the practice of giving an electronic gift certificate does not solve the problem since a dollar value is still associated with the certificate.
In a similar vein, for this reason, the price tag of a gift is invariably removed therefrom before the gift is wrapped so that the intended recipient is unaware of the cost of the gift. However, the recipient can obtain the price spent by the giver on the gift when the gift is returned. Indeed, it is often a problem with the proliferation of sales, that the exact amount spent on the gift by the giver is not necessarily the amount received by the recipient when returning the gift since the amount returned is often the lowest recent sales price. In such a case, the receipt may actually receive less than the giver paid and will not appreciate the monetary value of the gift to its fullest extent.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method for transferring electronic gift certificates without the recipient knowing the value thereof
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method for transferring and receiving electronic gift certificates without the recipient knowing or being able to readily ascertain the value thereof
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method for utilizing electronic gift certificates whereby the recipient is able to purchase any item displayed to the recipient. In other words, items that cannot be purchased by the recipient with the gift certificate are not displayed to the recipient. This will avoid reducing the value of the gift certificate.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a consumer with the ultimate electronic shopping solution to the long existing problem of giving the perfect gift (a gift to be chosen by the recipient) while not disclosing the gift cost.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved method for transferring, receiving and utilizing electronic gift certificates.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method for transferring electronic gift certificates with denominations associated with the gift certificates while enabling the recipient to purchase items of their own selection, and items which the recipient could design themselves.
In order to attain these objects, and others, the method for transferring, receiving and utilizing an electronic gift certificate comprises the steps of the giver generating a gift certificate including the value thereof, transmitting the gift certificate to a recipient (e.g., via e-mail) without an indicia of the value of the gift certificate, and presenting the recipient with only items to be purchased with the gift certificate whose value does not exceed the value of the gift certificate. In this manner, the recipient of the gift certificate is able to select an item to purchase with the gift certificate without knowing the exact value of the gift certificate.
Since the value of the item purchased by the recipient may not equal the value of the gift certificate, the excess amount could be refunded to the giver, at the giver's option. Also, since the price of the items to be purchased is usually not exactly equal to the value of the gift certificate, the recipient could be presented with items to be purchased with the gift certificate whose value exceeds the value of the gift certificate by an amount predetermined by the giver.
In one manifestation, if the value of the item purchased by the recipient does not equal the value of the gift certificate, the value of the gift certificate is reduced by the value of the item purchased by the recipient, and the recipient is then presented with only additional items to be purchased whose value does not exceed the reduced value of the gift certificate. This may continue as long as a meaningful amount remains. The excess can then be refunded to the giver.
When generating the gift certificate, a card (possibly animated) and/or music to be sent with the gift certificate can also be selected. The giver can also be presented with options as to the use of the gift certificate by the recipient, e.g., whether to refund the excess value once a single item is purchased to the giver or enable multiple purchasers.
In particular embodiments, with respect to the presentation to the recipient with only items to be purchased with the gift certificate, when the recipient decides to use the gift certificate, the recipient is connected to a dedicated web site for allowing use of such gift certificates and the recipient is presented thereat with a plurality of different categories of items to be purchased such that the recipient is able to select a category of the item to be purchased, e.g., jewelry, books. Upon the recipient selecting a category of the item to be purchased, the recipient may be connected to an existing third party web site at which items in the selected category are displayed and sold. In this case, the prices of the items sold at the web site are determined by designing the program at the dedicated web site to query the third party web site (without the knowledge of the recipient) and if the price of an item sold at the third party web site is above the value of the gift certificate, display of the item is suppressed such that only items whose value does not exceed the value of the gift certificate are displayed, preferably without indicia of the price of the items. In the alternative, the third party web site could be designed to accept an “invisible” value of the gift certificate transmitted by the dedicated web site (without the knowledge of the recipient) and display only those items having a value less than or equal to the value of the gift certificate. The pre-sorting/pre-selecting of only those items having a value less than or equal to the value of the gift certificate can be done either at the third party web site (server) or at the dedicated web site by utilizing appropriate software together with data (e.g., electronic catalogs) obtained from the third party.
On the other hand, upon the recipient selecting a category of the item to be purchased, the recipient may be presented with subcategories of the item to be purchased and upon the recipient selecting at least one of the subcategories of items to be purchased, catalog items in the selected subcategory are presented without an indicia of the price of the items, the items having a value which does not exceed the value of the gift certificate.
The recipient may also be provided with an option to design an item in
Millin Vincent
Patel Jagdish N
Roffe Brian
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