Abstract:
A system and method for managing the coupon redemption process electronically. A hand held device is used to store electronic coupons, which is then taken to retail stores for redemption of the electronic coupons during check-out. At check-out, the device downloads the electronic coupon data and the data is stored in the retail store&#39;s computer. The data from the retail store&#39;s computer is uploaded into coupon clearinghouse computer to enable retail stores to obtain redemption of the rebates owed to it from the manufacturers. The manufacturers can track coupons better and collect spending data about consumers. The method and device automates and improves coupon redemption process.

Description:
This application claims benefit of Provisional Application. No. 60/133,711 filed May 12, 1999. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Technical Field 
     This invention relates to a coupon management system. In particular, the invention relates to a method of crediting coupons to a consumer, utilizing an electronic reader for reading scannable data and comparing the scannable data with a database of purchased products for crediting the coupons against the total price of the purchased products. 
     2 Description of the Related Art 
     The world of product marketing is highly intense and competitive, with the understood intent to increase the gross sales of a given product. Among the many calculated strategies manufacturers utilize to this end is the dissemination of “cents-off” coupons. In the marketplace, the coupon has become a popular means of advertising a product. The coupon is used to stimulate consumers to purchase products by providing the consumer with a financial benefit, creating product awareness, prompting product trials, and rewarding repeat product purchases. This technique benefits all parties concerned, the manufacturer, the retailer, and the consumer. The manufacturer gains as his product is publicized and the coupon, upon redemption, provides a means for tracking customer tastes and reactions. Information can be correlated with other marketing data to develop a customer profile for intelligent analysis of product promotions. The retailer is happy as consumers comb his store in search of the item being discounted. And, of course, the thrifty consumer is the most eager of all as he saves some money at the check out. The coupon itself has many inherent benefits. 
     The most common form of a coupon is the retail, paper product coupon. Each coupon has printed thereon an alphanumeric identification. The alphanumeric identification, or coupon code, has no inherent information. A database must be utilized to get any desired information from the code. The information available is the manufacture and family of a particular item, a description and an amount by which to decrease the retail price of the item, an expiration date, and other useful codes that identifies the coupon. On January 1997 the coupon code was extended by the Uniform Code Council, Inc.(UCC). The extension enables manufacturers to put more information into coupon codes such as special offer codes and household or area ID codes. Currently, there are three coupon code databases one can access for a small fee. 
     While many customers are inclined to utilize coupons, the process of clipping and saving these coupons tends to be time-consuming and cumbersome. The process begins when the manufacturer decides to print and distribute coupons for one of its products. Consumers receive these coupons through a variety of means, with the most prevalent being the Free Standing Insert (FSIs). The use of the paper coupon requires the consumer to sit down each week, examine coupon FSIs, and cut out the coupons they want to use. Even when not required to cut coupons, some consumers consider coupons too much trouble to constantly organize and carry about. While many companies sell coupon organizers, coupon categorizers and coupon alphabetizers, these methods still require coupon clipping, constant coupon organization, and maintenance (removing expired coupons). It should be no surprise that the vast majority of coupons in FSIs each week go unredeemed. 
     Even after the consumer reaches the supermarket with his coupons, there are further problems with the present paper-based system. The most common system of redeeming coupons requires a paper coupon to be presented to a cashier when the consumer is checking out. The check-out clerk, to whom a coupon is presented, manually looks over the coupon. This not only wastes precious check-out line time as the clerk must carefully look over the coupon, but also reduces accuracy of the operation. Examples of potential error may include overlooking an expiration date, or overlooking the exact product specification for which the coupon is valid, i.e. only a certain size package may be stipulated on the coupon. Then, the cashier scans the coupon bar code with a scanner associated with the cash register and the cash register software identifies whether the coupon corresponds to an item just purchased. Also, when the consumer has numerous coupons, the individual examination and scanning of each coupon can be very time consuming, delaying all other consumers waiting in line. 
     This delay is greatly exacerbated when the cash register indicates that no corresponding product has been purchased for one or more of the coupons, stopping the transaction. To discover why a coupon is not appropriate, the cashier must examine the coupon and then review the cash register receipt to determine what aspect of the purchased product does not meet the coupon redemption requirements. In the case where the cashier desires to accept the inappropriate coupon as a customer service gesture, the cashier must “override” the cash register&#39;s rejection of the coupon. Typically this requires the pressing of several additional keys on the cash register. When this entire process must be repeated for multiple coupons not accepted by the cash register, which is common in the majority of transactions in which coupons are used, the delay disrupts the entire checkout process and negatively affects transaction speed, customer service, and front-end productivity. 
     Further problems and inefficiencies in the coupon redemption process arise after the retailer has accepted the coupons from consumers. In order for the retailer to be reimbursed by the manufacturer, the retailer must determine the total value of each manufacturer&#39;s coupons the retailer has redeemed. Due to the large volume and diversification of coupons handled by most merchants and the large number of manufacturers, it is often more efficient to employ a third-party coupon processing service or clearinghouse. 
     At the clearinghouse, the coupons are received from many retailers, pertaining to a multitude of manufacturers. An operator at the coupon processing service will manually handle each coupon, scan or manually enter the U.P.C. code, and sort the coupons by manufacturer. Typically, the sorting and counting work is done out of the country, where it may be done more economically. Then, the results are returned to the U.S. for billing the manufacturer and crediting the retailers. Sometimes the manufacturer may again sort the coupons using its own employees or another clearinghouse to insure all the coupons are the manufacturer&#39;s and check for signs of fraud. This process is fairly labor and time intensive. 
     The process is completed for every one of the billions of coupons redeemed annually. By the time the coupons have been collected by the retailer, passed through one and possibly two clearinghouses, and the manufacture reimburses the retailer, several weeks or months may have passed. The result is a considerable disadvantage to the retailer since the time between when the retailer gives the consumer the coupon discount and when the manufacturer reimburses the retailer is, in effect, an interest-free loan to the manufacturer. As would be expected, this very loose loop inevitably results in the retailers claiming they are under-credited, and the manufacturers claiming over-billing. 
     The manufacturer also suffers from the slow redemption process. The manufacturer cannot determine the effect of a coupon promotion until the manufacturer receives information on the number of coupons redeemed. Therefore, due to the current time intensive process, it is impossible for a manufacturer to quickly react to product performance, coupon redemption rates, or market changes. 
     In addition to the legitimate redeeming process being cumbersome, the conventional system is subject to abuse. Unfortunately, because redemption coupons frequently have a cash redemption, there exists wide spread problems with fraudulent misredemption and malredemption. Misredemption occurs where a retailer accepts a coupon for a product that has not been purchased. The situation may arise where retailer personnel may accept large numbers of coupons that are not closely related to the products bought by the consumer. In such a case, the manufacturer eventually (whether initially or through an invoice reduction by the retailer following a manufacturer&#39;s refusal to pay) reimburses the retailer while receiving no corresponding benefit in sales. Some misredemption occurs internally by retail employees, and is fought by the retailer. In other cases, the retailer is intentionally involved in misredemption to increase profits. Misredemption can run into the double digits for retailers, and manufacturers are plagued with the costs of paying for and preventing it. 
     Malredemption is another type of coupon fraud often practiced. Malredemption is the large scale submission of redemption coupons directly to the manufacturer for reimbursement of the coupons without the product having ever been purchased. Typically malredemption is carried out by illegitimate retailers acting as a “front” for persons who have set up mass coupon clipping systems. Because of the difficulty in correlating the number of available redemption coupons with the specialty items sold, the conventional system is subject to manipulation. Together misredemption and malredemption cost manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Fraud prevention by manufacturers requires large financial resources for the staffing of coupon fraud reduction departments. 
     It is not suggested that coupons should be eliminated but the current process must be changed. It is widely considered to be inefficient and is an easy victim of redemption fraud. Manufacturers print and distribute billions of paper coupons a year, and the redemption rate is very low. Also, manufacturers must spend hundreds of millions each year just to combat redemption fraud. Due to the tedious nature of the current process, it is suggested that a different system should be developed in which discounts can be applied to various products in a more economical and efficacious process. The industry needs to find a way to make the system more efficient, and to improve low redemption rates. The industry also needs to alleviate the cumbersome redemption process as well as reduce security and fraud problems. 
     Recently, a number of systems have been developed which address the problem of coupon redemption. One type of system is an electronic in-store coupon issuing and redeeming system that avoids the necessity of printing and collecting paper coupons. However, inventions such as this are limited only to the store they are located in. The user cannot organize the coupons at home or plan a shopping trip based on available coupons. In addition, the user will not know what is on sale until they get to the store. Also, inventions such as these do not utilize FSIs and require the customer to still clip, and organize other coupons. These types of inventions fail because they do not take advantage of currently available coupons. 
     Another type of invention utilizes a scanner device to allow a user to scan product bar code information from current coupons into a scanner device. This enables the user to take advantage of currently available FSI coupons as well as organize all the coupons the user has scanned. However, these devices have failed because they do not recognize the coupon UPC code or coupon code has no inherent information in itself. A coupon code has the manufacturer id, family code, value code and other such codes. These codes have no inherent information and must be referenced to a database in order for more user friendly information to be obtained. 
     Some inventions of this nature failed simply because the coupon code is never processed. The scanned information is never compared to a database. Consequently, the user is never provided with any feedback as to the nature of the information stored in the scanner device. Further, there is no way of looking through the stored information to determine which coupon items have been scanned into the scanner device. 
     Other inventions purport to have the database stored in the scanner and the necessary information is obtained from the database in the scanner. The problem with such an invention is the limited storage capacity of the scanner and the extremely large, almost always dynamic, database of coupon codes. Such inventions do not provide for a feasible way to update the database. Further, most of the previous inventions failed to take any kind of fraud prevention measures. In addition, on January of 1997, a new extended UPC code was introduced. So far, no coupon system has been introduced to take advantage of the new extended UPC code. 
     There is, therefore, a need for a personal data collector device which allows a user to enter product code information from coupons into a memory device, and receive feedback about the nature of the information stored in the memory device. There is also a need for such a device to provide a user with the ability to interactively manage the list of items stored in the memory device. 
     It would be extremely desirable to a product manufacturer, if a redemption coupon presented to a potential purchaser was directly correlated with the purchase of an item that is the subject of the coupon. Such a system would help eliminate the potential for abuse and permit redemption of only those coupons that are actually exercised by a consumer. Also, a system which effectively combines the capability of scanning coupons with means for receiving, marking and retaining such coupons so that they cannot be further used would provide important advantages in facilitating the handling of such coupons, regardless of whether they are returned directly to a manufacturer or issuer, or whether they are sent to a coupon redemption center. Additionally, an electronic system that provides both for the display of the electronic coupon and the electronic issuance and redemption of such coupon can wholly avoid the necessity for printing and publishing coupons in material form and the attendant expense of such printing and distribution. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     In order to meet one or more of the identified objects, the present invention includes a method and system for electronically managing and redeeming coupons. The system includes a coupon scanner that a consumer will obtain. The consumer will connect the coupon scanner to a cradle, which will upload coupon information via the Internet or similar data connection highway from a server that contains the coupon information. During this process, the coupon information is marked with a unique personal identifier that will electronically stamp the coupon information with the personal information about the consumer. This will allow every coupon redeemed to be traced from its origin through its redemption. Once the consumer has uploaded the coupon scanner with the desired coupon information, the Consumer takes the coupon scanner to a retail store and redeems the electronic coupons at check-out through a point of sale cradle, which is located at the check-out stand of the retail store. 
     The point of sale cradle will upload the electronic coupon information and personal information about the coupon scanner owner. The retail store has a server that stores the data received from the point of sale cradle. At a regularly scheduled interval, the retail store can upload its coupon data to a centralized coupon clearinghouse in order to redeem its coupons from the product manufacturers that issued the coupons. The data can also be used by a parent store to determine how much money particular manufacturers owe its chain of stores. 
     The coupon scanner will contain routines to make the use of coupons much easier for the consumer. One such routine computes the consumer&#39;s cost savings based upon coupons used at various intervals, such as monthly or annually. Another routine allows consumers to scan items at home or at the supermarket and search for coupons for that particular product. Yet another routine allows the user to view all coupon records stored in the coupon scanner with a selected letter of the alphabet. This enables consumers to find coupons much easier based upon the manufacturer or the brand names. Other routines are available for the coupon scanner and will be described in greater detail below. 
     The method and system of the present invention as well as other features, advantages, benefits and objects thereof over other methods and systems known in the art may be better understood with reference to the detailed description which follows. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the coupon management system of the invention. 
     FIG. 2 is an elevational front view of a portable scanning and display device. 
     FIG. 3 is a top view of the scanning and display device in FIG.  2 . 
     FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the scanning and display device of FIG.  2 . 
       5 A is a left side view of the scanning and display device of FIG.  2 . 
     FIG. 5B is a right side view of the scanning and display device of FIG.  2 . 
     FIG. 6 is a side view of a docking station for receiving the scanning and display device of FIG.  2 . 
     FIG. 7 is a front elevational view of the docking station for the scanning and display device of FIG.  2 . 
     FIG. 8 is a schematic flow diagram representing the basic steps used in operation of the scanning and display device of the coupon management system of the invention. 
     FIG. 9 is a schematic flow diagram representing the steps used by the cashier pricing system of the coupon management system of the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Referring now to FIG. 1, shown is a schematic diagram of the coupon management system  10  of the invention. A pricing system  12  is shown, which consists of a computing device  14 , and a scanner  16 , which is provided to scan scannable pricing information  15  off of purchased products  18 . The scanned information is transmitted to a computing device  14 , and is displayed on display  20 . An operator uses scanning and display device  24  to scan scannable information  23  off of coupon  25 . Preferably, the scannable information is presented as a bar code. The scanning and display device  24  is used to scan and store the information in a manner known in the art. A docking station  22  is connected to a computing device  14  for uploading coupon information from a scanning and display device  24 . 
     Referring now to FIGS. 2-7, a scanning and display device  24  has a housing  26  having a guide slot  28  (FIGS. 1,  5 A and  5 B) for engagement with a ridge  30  within a receiving slot  32  of docking station  34  (FIGS. 1,  6  and  7 ). The scanning and display device  24  is preferably battery operated. A charging port  36  is provided on a side of housing  26  so that the battery may be charged. A scanner face  38  (FIG. 3) is provided on a top surface of scanning and display device  24 . Scanner face  38  enables an operator to scan scannable coupon information into memory of the scanning and display device  24 . A display screen  40  is provided to display information regarding the information scanned from coupons. In the preferred embodiment, a designated location  42  will be provided to display the date and time and a designated location  44  is provided to display coupon expiration dates. To operate the scanning and display device  24 , an insert button  46  is provided to enter data and a delete button  48  is provided to delete selected data from memory of the scanning and display device  24 . A scroll button  50  is preferably provided so that an operator may scroll through a list of coupon information. An on/off switch  52  is also provided to activate or deactivate the device. Finally, on a bottom surface a data output  54  is provided for operative engagement with a data input (not shown) at the bottom of receiving slot  32 . Preferably, data output  54  is comprised of a multiplicity of metallic contacts  55  (FIG. 4) for cooperative engagement with a multiplicity of metallic contacts within receiving slot  32  (not shown). 
     Referring now to FIG. 8, a control sequence is schematically represented. The scanning and display device  24  receives coupon information via scanner face  38 . Preferably, the coupon information is coded by a bar code sequence as is commonly known in the art. The scanned information is then received within the memory of the scanning and display device  24 . Insert button  46  is pushed to input the coupon information as is indicated in box  810  in FIG.  8 . When input button  46  has been pushed as indicated in decision box  810 , then the coupon information is stored in memory of the scanning and display device  24  as indicated in box  812 . Preferably, the coupon information includes the brand name of the product, the type of product, the size of product, the value of the coupon and the validity or expiration dates of the coupon. 
     The scanning and display device  24  then determines whether the coupon is valid as designated in box  814 , i.e., it is determined whether the expiration date has passed. If the expiration date has passed, then a message is displayed on display screen  40 , indicating that the coupon has expired, as indicated in box  816 . The scanning and display device  24  then declines to store the coupon information in memory as indicated in box  818 . 
     If it is determined that the coupon has not expired or is valid as indicated in box  814 , then it is determined whether the brand name already exists in memory within the scanning and display device  24 , as indicated in box  820 . If the brand name is not already in memory, then the coupon information  23  is stored in the memory as indicated in box  822 . If it is determined that the brand name already exists in memory as indicated in box  820 , then it is determined whether the coupon has the same validity date as a coupon already stored in memory is indicated in box  824 . If the coupon information  23  indicates that the coupon  25  has the same validity date as a coupon  25  already stored in memory as indicated in box  824 , then a message is displayed on display screen  40 , indicating that the coupon  25  has already been stored, as indicated in box  826 . If so, then the scanning and display device  24  declines to store the coupon information  23  as indicated in box  818 . If the coupon  25  does not have the same validity date, then the coupon information  23  is stored within memory as shown in box  822  and the coupon information  23  is displayed on display screen  40  as indicated in box  828 . 
     At this time, scanning and display device  24  inquires whether additional coupon data  25  exists to be input, as indicated in box  830 . If so, input button  40  is depressed as indicated in box  810 . If it is determined in box  830  that no more coupon information exists, then the user may elect to sort the stored coupon information by brand name, as indicated in box  832 . If so, the coupon information is sorted by brand name and is displayed as indicated in box  834 . The user may elect to sort by product type as indicated in box  836 , which may be displayed as indicated in box  834 . Examples of various product types includes “breads”, “meat”, “vegetables”, “household items”, etc. 
     After selection of the desired display type, the user may then elect to scroll up, as indicated in box  838  and the data is scrolled upwards as indicated in box  840 . If it desired to scroll the data downward, as indicated in box  842 , the data is then displayed scrolling downwards as indicated in box  844 . 
     A determination is then made whether the data interface port  54  is engaged as indicated in box  846 . If not, then the scanning and display device  24  continues to display the stored coupon information  23  as indicated in box  828  or  834  and awaits for input button  46  to be depressed as indicated in box  810 . If the data interface port  54  is engaged, then the scanning and display device  24  uploads its memory into a pricing system  12 , as indicated in box  848 . 
     Referring now to FIG. 9, pricing system  12  is designed to operatively engage with the scanning and display device  24  via docking station  22  (FIGS. 1,  6  and  7 ). Pricing information  15  for purchased products is input by the pricing system, as indicated in box  900 . Scannable pricing information  15  for products  18  is preferably input by passing scannable information  15  in front of scanner  16  (FIG.  1 ). Scanner  16  is preferably of a type that can read bar coded information, as is known in the art. Pricing information  15  preferably includes the brand name of the product, the type of product, and the size of the product. As indicated in box  902 , the pricing information  15  of each scanned product  18  is summed so that a running total of the total purchase price may be calculated. It is then determined whether all purchased product information has been input into the pricing system  12 , as indicated in box  904 . If not, then additional pricing information is input as indicated in box  900 . If all purchased product information has been input as indicated in box  904 , then the coupon information stored in memory of the scanning and display device  24  is uploaded through docking station  22  (FIGS. 1,  6  and  7 ) as indicated in box  906 . A determination is then made whether the coupon information for a particular coupon  25  matches any purchased pricing information  15  that was input (box  900 ) as indicated in box  908 . If the coupon information does not match the pricing information as determined in box  908 , e.g. if coupon information  23  indicating a certain brand name and product size does not match pricing information  15  for a purchased product  18  of the same brand name and size, then it is determined whether there is any additional coupon information  23  for other scanned coupons  25  as indicated in box  910 . If not, then the total amount of the pricing information determined in box  902  is displayed, as indicated in box  912 . 
     If it is determined in box  910  that there is additional coupon information that has not been considered, then it is determined whether the additional coupon information matches any purchased pricing information, as indicated in box  908 . If coupon information  23  does match the pricing information  15  as indicated in box  908 , then the amount of the coupon  25  is deducted from the total price, as indicated in box  914 . If it is determined that no more coupon information remains to be considered, then the total amount of the purchase price is displayed, as indicated in box  912 . 
     The coupon management system  10  may be utilized in operation as follows. An operator locates a coupon  25 , having scannable coupon information  23  thereon, such as a bar code. The scannable coupon information preferably indicates a brand name, a type of product, a size applicable to the product, a coupon value or amount of discount and the validity or expiration dates associated with the coupon  25 . The operator then depresses the insert button  46  and runs the scanner face  38  of the scanning and display device  24  over the scannable coupon information  23 . Scanning and display device  24  then determines whether the coupon  23  is valid by comparing the expiration date of the coupon  23  with the current date. If the coupon  23  is determined to be invalid, then the scanning and display device  24  declines to store the coupon information  25 . If the coupon is determined to be valid, the scannable coupon information  23  is displayed via display screen  40 . Additionally, if scanning and display device  24  determines that stored coupon  25  is no longer valid, then the coupon information  23  is deleted from memory. 
     The scanning and display device  24  then determines whether the scannable coupon information  23  for the coupon  25  already exists within memory of the scanning and display device  24 . If so, it is determined whether the stored coupon has the same or later validity dates or expiration date for the scanned coupon  25 . If so, the scanning and display device  24  declines to store the scannable coupon information  23  in memory and indicates on display screen  40  that the coupon is already stored within the device. If the scannable coupon information  23  of coupon  25  is not stored within the memory of the scanning and display device  24 , then the scannable coupon information  23  is stored within memory in scanning and display device  24 . 
     The scannable coupon information  23  for various coupons  25  may then be categorized by desired attributes. Examples of such attributes include a brand name of the product or by the type of product. Examples of types of products includes breads, produce, meats, vegetables, household items, etc. Relevant information is then displayed via display screen  40 . Relevant information preferably includes the brand name, coupon value and expiration date of the coupon. 
     Once all desired coupons  25  have been scanned into the scanning and display device  24 , an operator may then transport the scanning and display device  24  to a store. An operator may then select products  18 , such as groceries, and place the products  18  in a shopping cart. The operator then wheels the shopping cart to a checkout register, where a checkout person operates a pricing system or computerized cash register  12 . The pricing system  12  includes a scanner  16 . 
     As the cash register operator scans in the prices of products  18 , the pricing system  12  obtains the brand name of the product, the type of the product, the size of the product and the price of the product from the scannable pricing information  15 . This information  15  is stored within the computing device  14  of the pricing system  12 . The computing device  14  adds the pricing information from each of the products  18  to calculate a total price. At this time, the operator or shopper may insert the scanning and display device  24  into a docking station  22  (FIGS. 1,  6  and  7 ). The stored coupon information  23  in the memory of the scanning and display device  24  is then uploaded into the pricing system  12  at the grocery store. Computing device  14  then compares the scannable coupon information  23  associated with each coupon  25  stored within the memory of the scanning and display device  24  that was scanned off of individual products  18  with the scanner  16  and input into the computing device  14  of the pricing system  12 . If it is determined that scannable coupon information stored within the scanning and display device  24  matches with a purchased product  18 , i.e., the operator or purchaser has an electronic coupon for the selected product  18 , then the computing device  14  reduces the total price of the purchased items  18  by the value of the stored coupon, which is available from the stored scannable coupon information  25 . Once an electronic coupon has been matched with a product, the coupon is deleted from the memory within the scanning and display device  24 . 
     The coupon management system has numerous advantages. These advantages include eliminating the hassles of clipping and transporting coupons to a store. The reduction of hassle will result in increased use by consumers, which is desirable for manufacturers of products, since consumers are more likely to be influenced by the easier to use coupons. Additional advantages include a reduction in store labor, since the coupons do not have to be manually entered into the cash register or pricing system. The result of the automated coupon matching and price reduction is a decrease in checkout time for consumers. 
     While the invention has been shown in only one of its forms, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that it is not so limited, but is susceptible to various changes without departing from the scope of the invention.