Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – With communication link
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-03
2003-12-02
Mancene, Gene (Department: 3754)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
With communication link
C273S236000, C700S091000, C705S018000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06656050
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to promotional gaming methods. More specifically, the invention creates the ability for sponsors, their customers or others related to a contest, to use “member cards”, credit or debit cards, and Point-of-Sale cash registers and their like, as well as wireless device usage (cell phones, palm pilots, hand held digital assistants, etc.), physical phone line usage, Internet Service Provider usage, and electronic order taking services and other loyalty-type programs typically associated with an account number, to automatically enter players into a sweepstakes type contest such as a “collect and win” and “match & win” game. The invention also defines a system to allow any player to easily share or trade game pieces for the purposes of gaining a higher probability of winning contest. The invention creates the ability for sponsors to increase all players' odds of winning a “collect & win” or other type sweepstakes, game or contest through use of an Odds Accelerator. The Odds Accelerator creates or adds an extra winning piece, rare piece, element, or chance to a sweepstakes type game, promotion or contest when certain parameters are met. Furthermore, the invention also creates the ability to incorporate “automated” game play for member card holders who do not have or cannot afford access to or who do not desire to access the game's host web site thus creating a “virtual Internet” collect & win or match and win promotion.
2. Background of the Invention
On-line and Off-line Retailers and manufacturers such as consumer packaged goods (CPGs) companies and grocery chains, among others, commonly sponsor promotional games. These games are intended to drive traffic to certain locations, increase sales or usage of specific products, and/or simply to reward customers for loyalty. Such games (games will be used synonymously with sweepstakes, contests and promotions throughout) come in many forms as will be readily known and understood by those skilled in the related art, including, random drawing sweepstakes, instant win packaging, lotteries, collect & win and match & win contests.
In two types of promotional games, (a so called “collect & win” game or a so called “match and win” game) a player must collect a combination of elements in order to win a prize or one of many prizes given by the sponsor. For example, a cola beverage manufacturer may print letters inside the bottle cap, and a player needs to collect the series of bottle caps with the letters C-O-L-A to win a prize or the company may print images on a cap and a player must match the image to an identical image on another cap. The game is usually available nationally if not worldwide and the odds of winning certain prizes are related to product distribution and availability among many other factors. Therefore it is difficult to collect the series of winning game pieces, since for example all of the bottle caps are dispersed over an extremely large area of the planet and, currently, there are typically only one or two “extremely rare” winning caps. If the winning cap is on the West Coast, and you live on the East Coast, your odds of winning are extremely low. The reason for only one or two rare pieces is that, prior to this invention and a prior invention file by the authors, no reasonable system existed to allow total control over game piece distribution and price awards. For example, if the “A” in the cola game above was the rare piece needed to win one million dollars and 1000 “A's” were printed and redeemed, then the potential prizes claimed against the sponsor would be devastating. Nevertheless, the possibility, albeit remote, of winning a prize of significant value provides a powerful incentive to prospective patrons.
Although off-line games of this nature, and other similar schemes utilizing an element of random chance, may be useful marketing tools, they suffer from several drawbacks. For example, manufacture and distribution of the game pieces is expensive and time consuming, especially when millions or billions pieces are made per game. Additionally, security measures must be implemented in order to prevent persons involved in distributing the pieces from stealing or diverting rare or winning pieces for personal use. Likewise, extremely time-consuming measures must be taken to inspect each piece in order to ensure that the correct number of winning pieces is made and excessive pieces are placed in circulation. Yet another current drawback of these games, especially “collect & win” or “match & win”, is that patrons playing the game must store each piece until a match has been made, if ever. This is a burden on the consumer and makes the games less attractive overall. Additionally, off-line, and some on-line, games of this nature are not normally integrated with any mechanism for compiling a list of patrons entering an establishment or purchasing or using a product for use in future promotional efforts. In yet another drawback, many of these games require redemption by mail. All of the aforementioned drawbacks are eliminated or greatly reduced as a result of this invention and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/498,748 filed on Feb. 7, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,390,921, which is hereby incorporated by reference (hereinafter “'921 patent”).
In fact, the '921 patent is a system that allows disparate people or groups of people to acquire valuable prizes, especially for “collect & win” and “math & win” games, via the sharing of specific or unique pieces over the system. The technology wherein the odds of winning increased were not practical until the invention set forth in the '921 Patent was reduced to practice. Although the preferred embodiments disclosed in '921 Patent provide highly useful games, further improvements are still desirable. In particular, it would be desirable to provide improved games within the broad meaning of the '921 patent which provide patrons/consumers with even greater motivation to participate in promotional games so that revenue, brand awareness, and off-line/on-line traffic will increase while opening the potential for large cost savings by eliminating pre-made physical pieces and for the development of on-line communities relating to a given sponsor or group of sponsors.
Thus, this invention complements and adds several completely new layers to collect & win, match & win and other games as disclosed in the '921 Parent, First, the invention herein automates the distribution of game pieces through appropriate programming and downloading/uploading of consumer data on a “member card” or “member card” database. The automated entry may be on a real-time or delayed basis depending on the technology available to a sponsor or to our site at any given time. For example, some Point-of-Sale (hereinafter “POS”) systems may require a “batch” to be uploaded to our system for processing once per at least one day; or some POS systems may utilize appropriate technology to upload triggering plays at our site on a real-time basis; likewise, receipt codes or product codes or on-product codes (“cap-codes”) may generate game plays on a real-time basis at time of entry on our site, or on a delayed basis so as to work with the automated portion of a game. A “member card” is any loyalty system or use of a product by a person, business or organization as previously describe above in the Background of the Invention. For example, a grocery retailer may distribute “member cards” to its patrons for such privileges as check cashing, purchase discounts, and the collection of demographic information among other reasons. A “member card” is also used herein to describe usage based services such as cell phones and other wireless devices, land-line local and long-distance phone services, on-line user fees, on-line “grocery cart checkouts” and other such services not to be limited by the above. Specifically, the system described herein utilizes and/or integrates with our system, a game sponsor's member card data co
Bolton Scott
Busch Steven
Buechner Patrick
Liniak Berenato & White
Mancene Gene
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