Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Electronic shopping
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-30
2002-07-02
Choi, Kyle J. (Department: 2163)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Electronic shopping
C705S014270
Reexamination Certificate
active
06415265
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION
The recent rapid development of the Internet has opened many opportunities for new forms of commerce. This invention was initially conceived as a way to serve the part of the software development community that has been giving away software in the form of “shareware”. Shareware is promoted by word-of-mouth on the basis of the impression of value to the users and is circulated free of initial charge with the expectation that prospective users who try the product will willingly pay for the right to continue to use the product. This invention uses the monetary incentive of multi-level marketing to augment “impression of value” to promote the word-of-mouth marketing, and this invention uses direct payment and individualized installation to augment “willingness” as a means for developers to receive payment. The individualized installation can prevent copying the product to other computers and can be built in such a way that prospective customers can have a trial period prior to making the payment and with a reinstallation upon payment. This provides all of the flexibility of shareware with significantly reduced risk to the product developer.
As a note: multi-level marketing is a method of sales promotion in which a commission is paid not only to the seller responsible for making the sale, but also to several levels of sellers that were responsible for distributing knowledge of the product to the seller making the current sale. For instance: a piece of software is sold for $25 and pays commissions of $5 to the person making the sale (the level
1
seller), $3 to the person who informed him of the product (the level
2
seller), $1.50 to the person who informed him (level
3
), and $0.50 to the person who informed him (level
4
). If the purchaser encourages two sales to people who each encourage two sales to people who each encourage two sales, then the original purchaser receives more money back in commissions than he originally paid for the physical product, and the product developer gets paid every time.
The usefulness of this invention as a multi-level marketing server includes automatic shipping of hardcopy documentation and physical products using an automatic shipping system for distribution. The physical products include such things as books, cosmetics, health supplements, cars, tickets, timeshare vacation condos, computer peripheral hardware, furniture, service coupon and anything else that can be sold and delivered (or for which a coupon, ticket, certificate or deed can be delivered). This invention itself is independent of the type of product or service being sold.
Although many organizations have used computers to calculate commissions for multi-level marketing, none has set forth an invention that provides access directly to the customer to make purchases via a computer network from his own computer. All related prior art has required the involvement of a registered seller or operator with privileges to make sales entries to the computer.
Prior art has also included direct purchases via electronic computer network (e.g. Netscape's E-commerce Products), both those delivered directly via the network and those delivered by automatic shipping systems. None of these direct sales via the network have a multi-level marketing commission capability.
These purchases via the network have involved the use of credit card accounts and/or electronic transfer of funds directly to and/or from bank accounts (e.g. Netscape's LivePayment System). They have also used a form of currency that is considered cash on the network. Use of these various forms of cash and credit are simply identified as Method of Payment (from purchaser) and Method of Pay (to sellers and other payees).
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is a server which can be attached to an electronic computer network, such as the Internet, Intranets, Extranets, and Portals, and which accepts purchase requests and payment via the network directly from a customer's computer and issues a shipping order to send a physical product to the customer and/or vends an electronically transferable product directly to the customer's computer via the network, with the key feature that it calculates and pays product based multi-level commissions. (see
FIG. 1
) Herein, this server is called the Sales Support Server. As pat of its on-fine service, the Sales Support Server accepts purchase requests, acquires the payment, transfers the product, calculates commissions (using a product based multilevel marketing commission structure), pays the commissions and fees, and adds registration data to the multi-level sales database. When the selected product is physical, the Sales Support Server issues a shipping order to a shipping and handling system to transfer the product.
The Shipping and Handling system provides the product availability and any product back-order information to the Sales Support Server according to the type of system used for Shipping and Handling. If Shipping and Handling is provided by a completely external service (
FIG. 3
a
), product availability and back-order information must be recorded as it is made available by the external service. If Shipping and Handling has an interactive relationship (
FIG. 3B
) or is fully integrated with the Sales Server (FIG.
3
C), product availability and back-order information can be acquired directly.
As with any sales system that uses a bolt-on or an affiliate Shipping and Handling system, Customer Tracking Information and Order Tracking must be kept until the confirmation of the delivery is received. After the confirmation of the delivery is received, the payment is collected, and the fees are calculated and dispersed. The Customer Tracking Information allows the Sales Support Server to associate the customer, the customer's method of payment and the reference to the Order Tracking information.
When a completely external service is used for order fulfillment, that external service must provide the customer the Order Tracking information directly through whatever method it normally uses. The Sales Support Server will simply give the customer the appropriate contact instructions. After the initial Shipping Order transaction, the only information received back from the external service is the confirmation of the delivery.
When a Shipping and Handling system has in interactive relationship with the Sales Server, the Sales Server can query the Shipping and Handling system directly for the Order Tracking information. Therefore, the Sales Support Server will be able to provide Order Tracking to the customer by getting it from the Shipping and Handling system on request.
When the Sales Server and the Shipping and Handling system are fully integrated, the Order Tracking and Customer Tracking Information can also be integrated. In this case the Sales Support Server will have the Order Tracking information immediately available to respond to customer queries.
When the selected product is electronically transferable, the Sales Support Server transfers the product by downloading it directly to the customer's computer. The generation of receipts and reports is not within the scope of the invention but is expected to be a part of every implementation of the invention. Customer support is also expected to be part of every implementation to handle general complaints, order cancellations, exchanges, returns, etc.
A product based MLM commission structure is distinguished from an organization based MLM commission structure by the method of introduction of new sellers. When the position of a new seller in a commission structure is under the one who introduced the new seller to the MLM organization, the commission structure is organization based. When the position of a new seller in a commission structure is under the one who informed the new seller of a product or group of products, the commission structure is product based.
The complementary invention is the client application which runs on a customer's general purpose computer attached to the net
Anderson Velma M. D.
Shell Allyn M.
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