Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-27
2002-06-11
Carlson, Jeffrey D. (Department: 2162)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C705S026640, C705S400000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06405175
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to computer-assisted electronic commerce (e-commerce), and more particularly to customer rewards programs.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Consumer rewards programs have been widely used for many years. Supermarkets once issued value stamps or coupons that a consumer could accumulate and exchange for a reward or discount. Airline Frequent-Flyer programs reward travelers with free tickets once enough miles have been flown. Credit-card-like rewards cards are presented by shoppers at supermarket checkouts to receive instant price reductions.
Computers have been used to manage such rewards programs. See “Automated Purchase Reward Accounting System and Method”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,019 by Schultz et al., and assigned to Citicorp of Stamford, Conn. Computer networks have also been used for reward-program administration. Frequent-Flyer miles in a person's account can be accessed over the Internet using the world-wide-web.
Increasing the Internet is being used for purchases. Online “virtual” stores are replacing the so-called “bricks-and-mortar” stores. A single virtual store can serve customers in many different cities and states without costly local stores. As demand increases, additional computers are merely added to the store, allowing phenomenal sales growth with relatively little capital outlay. As an example, Priceline.com, an online seller of airline tickets, reached one million customers in their first year of operation. To reach one million customers, traditional stores such as Wal-Mart have to build and open hundreds or more stores in many different cities, at a substantial cost and delay.
e-Commerce—
FIG. 1
FIG. 1
is a diagram of electronic commerce (e-commerce) using the Internet. A shopper uses browser
10
on a local client personel computer (PC) to access web sites on Internet
20
. The user can connect directly to online stores
12
,
14
, and can search for products within each store using the store's local search engine. For example, a user looking for a special book tittle can connect to amazon.com (of Seattle Wash.)as store
12
, and to BarnesAndNoble.com as store
14
, and perform two search for the book's tittle. Each store
12
,
14
presents its price and book description to the user of browser
10
. The user can then buy the book from the store with the lower price by pressing virtual buttons displayed on the web page. The user is then shown a checkout page, where the user enters his shipping address, credit card, and other information to complete the purchase.
The user may instead connect directly to online mall
16
. Online mall
16
has private connection to store
12
,
14
and other stores, perhaps receiving a database and updates of current product and price information from each store
12
,
14
. When the user performs a product search on line mall
16
, prices from many different stores are presented together on the same web page, allowing a quick comparison. For example, a book in a local walk-in books that costs $15 may be available for $12 at store
12
(amazon.com.) However, a search for the book at online mall
16
shows another store
14
with the same book for only $10. Perhaps the user was not aware of the existence of store
14
since it is relatively unknown. The user thus saves an additional $2 by using online mall
16
to find an online store with lower prices.
While online malls are useful, often they have exclusive marketing agreements with some online stores that exclude other stores. For example, some online malls at web portals such as Yahoo! and Excite of Santa Clara, Calif. show books only from amazon.com and not from other online booksellers. A user of such an online mall is not told of the lower prices at competitors to amazon.com.
To perform a more thorough search, the user can also use a software program or agent known as an Internet robot or ‘bot’. The user of browser
10
connects to ‘bot’ service
24
and enters the product information to search for. ‘Bot’ service
24
then sends out a search to stores
12
,
14
for the product, and also searches other sites on the Internet. ‘Bot’ service
24
then reports its results back to browser
10
.
Online auctions may also have the desired product for sale. ‘Bot’ service
24
may also perform a search at online auction site
18
. Online auctions may provide much lower prices than online stores
12
,
14
. For example, a book that retails for $20 and is discounted to $16 at online store
12
may be found for $2 at online auction site
18
when few are bidding on the book. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,896 by Fisher et al., and assigned to Onsale, Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif. Some online auction sites
18
allow purchasers to leave feedback on sellers. Such feedback is accumulated and scored to provide other bidders with information about the seller's integrity.
Change-detection web site
29
can be used to periodically and automatically search online auction site
18
for a particular item and price. Thus items that are infrequently on auction can be found if the user is patient. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,898,836 by Freivald et al., assigned to NetMind Services, Inc. of Campbell, Calif.
Online Reviews
Internet shopping is powerful not only because of the lower prices found. Many product reviews are posted on the Internet. The user can read such product reviews at magazine review site
22
. Some online malls
16
link shoppers to these product-specific reviews, allowing shoppers to compare products as well as prices.
Ordinary persons who are not members of the press can also post reviews and comments about products on the Internet. Newsgroups have traditionally been used by consumers to post comments about various products. Newsgroup search site
28
can be used to find such comments.
Unfortunately, finding product comments in newsgroups can be difficult, especially when the product lacks a unique marketing name that can be searched for. Some web sites are being created to collect product reviews and opinions from users. User opinion site
26
encourages users to leave product reviews by promising rewards for the reviewers based on the usefulness of the advice. Other readers vote on the quality of the product reviews, and the results used to rank the reviews.
While such product reviews and consumer comments and opinions add to the usefulness of the overall Internet, they may not be directly linked to the product pages of online stores
12
,
14
, forcing users to independently navigate to stores
12
,
14
. Since price information is not always linked to product reviews, users must still search for the lowest prices using ‘bot’ service
24
or online mall
16
.
Although the cost of setting up an online store or service is much lower than for traditional stores and services, the cost is still significant. The time required to accumulate product reviews or build a database of products and prices for an online mall is significant. While software can be used to search for and collect information from the Internet, often the software is confused by the information retrieved, perhaps reading a phone number or product ID as a price. Human intervention and checking of this information is often required, at an added expense. As prices change, the database must be updated or corrected.
What is desired is a web site and service with a searchable database of products and price information. It is desired to collect product and price information from a wide variety of online stores and malls. It is desired to rapidly build the database at a minimum of cost. It is desired to use consumers to build and maintain the information in the database by allowing consumers to submit and/or correct product and price information. It is further desired to reward consumers for building and correcting information in the product and price database. Such rewards are preferably based on the relevance of the information supplied or corrected by the consumer, and by how often the information is used by other consumers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A searchable database c
Auvinen Stuart T.
Carlson Jeffrey D.
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