Abstract:
System and method for registering a product on behalf of a purchaser who purchases a product from a vendor using a financial instrument such as a credit card. In one embodiment, the system collects product information at a point of sale. The system collects purchaser information from the financial institution that issued the instrument to the purchaser. The collected purchase and purchaser information are then forwarded to the manufacturer or its authorized agent for registration, e.g., to facilitate development of cross-selling opportunities, to activate a manufacturer&#39;warranty or to obtain a rebate, upgrades or recall information and transmitting information to the purchaser confirming the product registration.

Description:
FIELD  
         [0001]    The present application relates to an information processing system, and more particularly to a method and system for registering product purchases with a manufacturer, manufacturer representative, vendor or other entity using information obtained at the point of purchase.  
         BACKGROUND  
         [0002]    The registration of a purchased product is often necessary to take advantage of services offered by or on behalf of the manufacturer or vendor of the product. For instance, products often must be registered to take advantage of a manufacturer&#39;rebate and to activate a manufacturer&#39;s warranty.  
           [0003]    In addition, product registration can present the manufacturer or third party with additional sales opportunities and demographic data on the customer. For instance, if a manufacturer has information about the purchasers of its products it can direct its advertisements for related products and services specifically to the purchaser. Thus, manufacturers and vendors can use customer information to advertise and to offer discounts, coupons for accessory products or product upgrades.  
           [0004]    Ordinarily, the purchaser manually registers the product by filling out a card with the required information and mailing it to the manufacturer or other designated entity. This process takes time and purchasers do not always go to the trouble to fill out the cards. It is not uncommon with regard to warranty cards, for example, that by the time the purchaser gets around to filling out the card, the purchaser has misplaced the sales receipt or has forgotten purchase information that the manufacturer has requested on the warranty card. In addition, the use of a warranty card requires that the manufacturer employ personnel to receive the warranty cards and to key in the information contained on them.  
           [0005]    Some manufacturers have offered on-line warranty registration over the Internet. However, even on-line registration requires that the purchaser take the trouble to visit the manufacturer&#39;s web site, to find the appropriate web page and to enter the required information on the web page. Some purchasers never go to the trouble of registering their purchases, sometimes forfeiting the opportunity to activate the manufacturer&#39;s warranty.  
           [0006]    The process of obtaining a manufacturer&#39;s rebate on a purchase similarly requires that the purchaser fill out and mail in an information form. In addition, in order to receive a rebate manufacturers commonly require that the purchaser provide proof of purchase information, such as a UPC code and a sales receipt. However, purchasers often lose or misplace their sales receipts, fail to take the time to fill out the forms or simply forget to apply for the rebate.  
           [0007]    There is a need for an improved method and system for registering product purchases for purposes of product warranty, rebate, upgrades, recalls, cross-selling and the like.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0008]    An aspect of the present application provides a computer-implemented method of registering a product on behalf of a purchaser who purchases the product using a financial instrument, such as a credit card, debit card or smart card. The method comprises receiving from a vendor purchase information for the product purchased by the purchaser, the purchase information including a purchase date and a product identifier, receiving from the vendor an identifier of the financial instrument, for instance, a credit card account number, that the purchaser used to purchase the product, retrieving information of the purchaser from a financial institution that issued the financial instrument and transmitting the purchase information and the purchaser information to a manufacturer of the product for registration of the product.  
           [0009]    Another aspect of the present application provides a method for registering a product for warranty service. The method includes obtaining product information, purchase information and customer information electronically from the vendor, using the information to obtain additional information about the product purchased, the purchaser, and the manufacturer or other entity to which the information is to be provided, formatting the information if it is not received in a pre-formatted state pursuant to the requirements of the manufacturer or other entity that is to receive the warranty information, providing the warranty information to the manufacturer or other entities, receiving a confirmation that the product has been registered for warranty purposes and sending a warranty registration confirmation to the purchaser.  
           [0010]    A further aspect of the present application provides a method for obtaining a rebate on a product on behalf of a purchaser of the product. The method includes obtaining product information, purchase information and customer information electronically from the vendor, using the information to obtain additional information about the product purchased, the purchaser, the vendor, the manufacturer or other entity to which the information is to be provided, formatting the information if it is not received in a pre-formatted state pursuant to the requirements of the manufacturer or other entity that is to receive the rebate information, providing the rebate information to the vendor, manufacturer or other entity, receiving a confirmation that the rebate information has been received by the manufacturer or other entity and sending a rebate registration confirmation to the purchaser. An extension of this aspect of the present application provides a method by which a purchaser may obtain a rebate at the point of sale.  
           [0011]    A further aspect of the invention extends to a scenario in which a vendor serves as a controller, or a manufacturer serves as a vendor and/or controller. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0012]    [0012]FIG. 1 a  illustrates an exemplary embodiment for obtaining and providing information concerning a product purchase to a manufacturer, vendor or other entity to develop cross-selling opportunities;  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 1 b  provides a more detailed illustration of a portion of the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1 a;    
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 2 a  illustrates an exemplary embodiment for obtaining and providing information to register a product to activate the product warranty;  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 2 b  provides a more detailed illustration of a portion of the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 2 a;    
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 3 a  illustrates an exemplary embodiment for obtaining information for requesting a product rebate;  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 3 b  provides a more detailed illustration of a portion of the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 3 a; and  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary system of the present application. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0019]    The present invention is a method by which an entity, such as a credit card issuer, can provide purchase and purchaser information to a manufacturer for various purposes, including to facilitate upgrades, recalls, cross-selling of related products, activation of manufacturer warranties, and rebates.  
         [0020]    In the ordinary retail transaction made with a credit card, the purchaser chooses a product to purchase and presents the product to the vendor at the point of sale. Generally, the vendor scans the product&#39;s UPC code and swipes the purchaser&#39;s credit card. The vendor then transmits to a transaction authorizing party information concerning the product and manufacturer, such as the product&#39;s UPC code, information concerning the transaction, such as the vendor&#39;s identification and location, the date of purchase and the transaction amount and information concerning the purchaser, such as the purchaser&#39;s name, credit card number and the credit card expiration date.  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 1 a  illustrates a method  100  for providing product purchase information to a manufacturer where one or more items of the information provided to the manufacturer comes from the point of sale, either directly, or indirectly through an authorizing agent or other entity. Although the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1 a  refers to a “manufacturer” as the ultimate recipient of the information, the information collected and can be provided to entities other than the manufacturer.  
         [0022]    The steps involved in providing product purchase information to a manufacturer in the present invention are illustrated in FIG. 1 a.  In step  110 , the controller, which may be the credit card issuer or another entity, receives manufacturer information, product information, purchase information and purchaser information from the vendor, the authorizing agent or from another entity.  
         [0023]    The vendor may collect product information by various means including scanning the product&#39;s universal product code. The term “universal product code” is used to indicate standardized industry codes used to designate goods made or sold in commerce and includes the Universal Product Codes (“UPC” code) used by manufacturers, wholesalers and vendors in the United States and Canada, the EAN codes used by manufacturers, wholesalers and vendors outside the United States and Canada, and any other codes used by groups of manufacturers, wholesalers and vendors to identify products. The present invention is not limited to use with products manufactured or packaged with UPC codes, but may be used with any system of marking a product with an identifier, by way of example, a radio frequency identification (“RFID”) tag.  
         [0024]    The purchase information includes the date of purchase, which the vendor may obtain by keying in the date of purchase, by obtaining the date of purchase from an electronic source or by any other means of obtaining the purchase date. The purchase information may include the price of the product, which may be keyed into a cash register, obtained from a database using the UPC code obtained from the product, or any other means of obtaining the product&#39;s price.  
         [0025]    Purchaser information is obtained by swiping the customer&#39;s credit card through a card reader that reads information from the magnetic strip on the card and processes the information from the magnetic strip through techniques well known in the art. Although the exemplary embodiment refers to a “credit card”, the present invention is not limited to a credit card. Rather, the vendor may swipe a debit card or other card containing a purchaser identifier in machine readable form, read a smart card or key in, or have the purchaser key in, an account number assigned to the purchaser as opposed to swiping a credit card.  
         [0026]    The manufacturer information includes a manufacturer identifier such as a UPC code. However, the manufacturer information may also include other information including information as to whether the manufacturer accepts information on transactions involving the product, the items of information the manufacturer accepts, the format the information should be in and an electronic or geographic address to which the information should be transmitted.  
         [0027]    In step  120 , the controller processes the information obtained in step  110 . FIG. 1 b  contains a more detailed illustration of step  120 . In step  125 , the controller determines whether it has received information in step  110  as to whether the manufacturer accepts transaction information such as product, purchase and purchaser information. Some manufacturers may not gather information on sales of their products. Moreover, some manufacturers may gather information on only a subset of products that they manufacture.  
         [0028]    If the manufacturer information received in step  110  does not indicate whether the manufacturer accepts information on transactions involving the product, in step  130  the controller queries a database using the manufacturer identifier and product identifier received in step  110  to obtain information as to whether the manufacturer accepts information concerning the transaction. In step  140 , the controller determines whether the manufacturer accepts purchase information for the purchased product. If the manufacturer does not accept such information, no further action would be performed with regard to that purchased product.  
         [0029]    If the manufacturer accepts information concerning the transaction, in step  150  the controller determines whether it has sufficient manufacturer information to complete the process, such as the types of information the manufacturer accepts, the format the information should be in and the address to which the information should be sent. If the controller does not have all of the manufacturer information, the controller queries a database for the missing information in step  152 . In the preferred embodiment a single manufacturer database contains all of the information needed from the manufacturer. However, the present invention includes a method and system in which the controller must query more than one database to obtain the manufacturer information.  
         [0030]    Once the controller has the information as to the types of information the manufacturer accepts, in step  160  the controller determines whether it obtained all of that information in step  110 . If it does not have any particular item of information requested by the manufacturer, in step  170  the controller queries one or more appropriate databases for the missing information. For example, if the manufacturer requests that the information transmitted include the product model number, the controller would obtain the model number from a database containing product model numbers using the UPC code. Thus, in step  120 , the controller obtains all of the additional information that the manufacturer requests and that the controller has ready access to.  
         [0031]    Referring back to FIG. 1 a,  in step  180 , the controller then formats the product, purchase and purchaser information in the manner desired by the manufacturer.  
         [0032]    In step  190 , the controller transmits the information that the controller has obtained and that the manufacturer has requested to the address specified by the manufacturer.  
         [0033]    As is illustrated in FIG. 2 a,  the present invention can be used to register a product purchase to activate a product warranty. In step  210 , the controller receives manufacturer information, product information, purchase information and purchaser information from the vendor, the authorizing agent or from another party.  
         [0034]    In step  220 , the controller processes the information obtained in step  210  and gathers additional warranty information if it does not have all of the information that the manufacturer requests for warranty activation. FIG. 2 b  contains a more detailed illustration of step  220 . In step  225 , the controller determines whether the information received in step  210  includes information as to whether the manufacturer offers a warranty on the purchased product.  
         [0035]    If the manufacturer information received in step  210  does not include information as to whether the manufacturer offers a product warranty on the purchased product, in step  230  the controller queries a database using the manufacturer identifier and product identifier received in step  210  to obtain information as to whether the manufacturer offers a warranty on the purchased product. The controller then assesses in step  240  the information that it has to determine whether the manufacturer offers a warranty on the product. If the manufacturer does not offer a warranty on the product, no further action would be performed with regard to that product.  
         [0036]    If the manufacturer offers a warranty on the product, in step  250  the controller determines whether it has sufficient manufacturer information, such as the types of information the manufacturer requires for warranty activation, the format the information should be in and the address to which the information should be sent. If the controller does not have all of the manufacturer information, in step  252  the controller queries one or more appropriate databases for the missing information. Once the controller has the information as to the types of information the manufacturer requires for warranty activation, in step  260  the controller determines whether it has that information. If it does not have any particular item of information, in step  270  the controller queries one or more appropriate databases for the information. Thus, in step  270  the controller obtains all of the additional warranty information that it has ready access to.  
         [0037]    Referring back to FIG. 2 a,  in step  280 , the controller then formats the product, purchase and purchaser information that the manufacturer requires in the manner desired by the manufacturer.  
         [0038]    In step  290 , the controller transmits the warranty information to the address specified by the manufacturer.  
         [0039]    In step  292 , the controller stores the warranty information with the purchaser information.  
         [0040]    In step  294 , the controller sends the purchaser confirmation that the warranty information has been forwarded to the manufacturer, and information as to the length of the warranty and the warranty terms.  
         [0041]    As is illustrated in FIG. 3 a,  the present invention can be used to apply for a manufacturer rebate on a purchased product. In step  310 , the controller, which may be the credit card issuer or another party, receives manufacturer information, product information, purchase information and purchaser information from the vendor, the authorizing agent or from another party.  
         [0042]    In step  320 , the controller processes the information received in step  310  and gathers additional rebate information if necessary. FIG. 3 b  contains a more detailed illustration of step  320 . In step  325 , the controller determines whether the information received in step  310  includes information as to whether the manufacturer offers a rebate on the purchased product.  
         [0043]    If the manufacturer information received in step  310  does not include information as to whether the manufacturer offers a rebate on the purchased product, in step  330  the controller queries a database using the manufacturer identifier and product identifier received in step  310  to obtain information as to whether the manufacturer offers a rebate on the purchased product. In step  340  the controller assesses the information that it has to determine whether the manufacturer offers a rebate on the product. If the manufacturer does not offer a rebate on the product, no further action would be performed with regard to that product.  
         [0044]    If the manufacturer offers a rebate on the product, in step  350  the controller determines whether it has sufficient manufacturer information, such as the types of information the manufacturer requires for the rebate, the format the information should be in and the address to which the information should be sent. If the controller does not have all of the manufacturer information, in step  352  the controller queries one or more databases for the missing information. Once the controller has the information as to the types of information the manufacturer requires for the rebate, in step  360  the controller determines whether it has that information. If it does not have any particular item of information, in step  370  the controller queries one or more appropriate databases for the missing information.  
         [0045]    Referring back to FIG. 3 a,  in step  380 , the controller formats in the manner desired by the manufacturer the product, purchase and purchaser information that the manufacturer requires for a rebate application and that the controller has been able to obtain.  
         [0046]    In step  390 , the controller transmits the rebate information to the address specified by the manufacturer.  
         [0047]    In step  392 , the controller stores the rebate information with the purchaser information.  
         [0048]    In step  394 , the controller sends the purchaser confirmation that the rebate information has been forwarded to the manufacturer.  
         [0049]    [0049]FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a business system according to the present invention. In FIG. 4, processor  410  is electronically connected to a plurality of vendors, either directly or indirectly through an intermediary entity, such as a credit card authorizing agent, a credit card issuer or other entity  404 . Processor  410  is programmable to receive product information, manufacturer information, purchase information and purchaser information from the vendors or other entities. Processor  410  may be a personal computer, a server, a mainframe or a network including computers, or any other processing and/or storage devices.  
         [0050]    Processor  410  is electronically connected to a Recipient  420 . Processor  410  is programmable to transmit product information, manufacturer information, purchase information and purchaser information to Recipient  420 . Recipient  420  may be a personal computer, server, mainframe or network including computers, or any other processing and/or storage devices operated by a manufacturer or other entity designated by a manufacturer to receive one or more of product information, manufacturer information, purchase information and purchaser information.  
         [0051]    Processor  410  is electronically connected to one or more databases (not shown) that contain one or more of product information, manufacturer information, purchase information and purchaser information.  
         [0052]    Processor  410  is electronically connected to one or more databases (not shown) for storing product information, manufacturer information, purchase information and purchaser information.  
         [0053]    Processor  410  is programmable to transmit information to the purchaser, including confirmation that information has been sent to Recipient  420 . Processor  410  may interface with the purchaser electronically through a network such as the Internet, or by other electronic means, through devices such as a personal computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), other forms of electronic wallet, telephone, mobile phone, server, mainframe or network of computers, or some other similar device operated by the purchaser. Such information may be sent electronically through a network such as the Internet. Alternatively, Processor  410  may alert a person to send a hard copy of the information to the purchaser.  
         [0054]    The embodiments described above are illustrative examples of the present invention and it should not be construed that the present invention is limited to these particular embodiments. Various changes and modifications may be effected by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. The components of the embodiments illustrated in FIGS. 1 a - 4  may be implemented through hardware, software, and/or firmware. The number of components in FIGS. 1 a - 4  is not limited to what is illustrated. Accordingly, the present invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.