Abstract:
A method of purchasing goods or services with use of a bank credit, debit or ATM card. The bank card is of the type issued to consumers as a means of identifying the consumers and for extending credit to consumers for the purchase of goods or services. Purchases made by consumers are tracked and purchasing information provided to a receiving body. The receiving body is authorized by consumers to purchase tickets in a lottery sanctioned by a governmental agency as to pay for lottery tickets purchased directly from the governmental agency to the extent the receiving body has logged credits based upon the consumer&#39;s card usage.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     The present application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/089,693 filed on Mar. 24, 2005, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,168,616 and U.S. application Ser. No. 11/204,851 filed on Aug. 16, 2005. 
     
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD  
       [0002]     The present invention relates generally to financial network systems more specifically to credit cards and include the ability of a card holder to participate in a governmental sanctioned lottery.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0003]     For many years, banks and other financial institutions have extended credit to consumers through the issuance of bank cards. Such cards, employing magnetic strips, holograms and other identifiers, enable consumers to purchase goods and services while credit is extended at the point of purchase. In doing so, financial institutions generally prescreen card holders establishing a credit limit which the consumer is unable to exceed.  
         [0004]     It is well recognized that considerable risk is associated with the issuance of bank cards to customers. Each time a customer makes use of his or her bank card, unsecured credit is extended. The default rate through the use of such cards is quite high in comparison to other types of loans, particularly those in which a security interest is taken by the financial institution. Nevertheless, bank cards have proven to be an exceedingly lucrative vehicle upon which banks and other financial institutions derive income.  
         [0005]     There are a number of factors which add to the profitability and thus success of bank cards and which support the issuance of unsecured credit with these cards notwithstanding the heightened risk. Many cards have an annual fee payable by the consumer merely for the privilege of possessing the card and enjoying the flexibility of receiving credit contemporaneous to the purchase of goods and services. In virtually all instances, the financial institution charges an interchange fee, typically about 3% or more of the dollar value of the transaction, most of which goes to the financial institution that issued the bank card, but a percentage of which is attributable to the bank card entity, such as Visa, Mastercard, Diner&#39;s Club, American Express and Discover Card. Further, if purchases are not paid by consumers within the first billing cycle subsequent to the purchase, interest rates are imposed by the lending institution or bank at rates far higher than those established for secured loans.  
         [0006]     In light of the above, it is well recognized that financial institutions and bank card issuers profit to such an extent that certain incentives have been offered to encourage bank card ownership and usage. For example, many lending institutions waive their annual fees. Other bank cards provide consumers with incentives including cash back or cash credits, airline, hotel and vacation credits and customer perks such as travel related services which are extended to bank card holders particularly in foreign countries. As an example, several lending institutions have established pre-existing relationships with airlines whereby for each dollar attributable to a purchase employing the subject bank card, one airline mile of free travel is credited to the consumer&#39;s account. This has proven to be quite successful as many bank card holders put virtually every purchase, from common every day groceries to major appliances and even automobiles on their bank cards in order to expand their airline mile credits. The use of incentives to promote bank card usage and the enhanced profitability to bank card companies and banks and lending institutions is a proven business model which has been successfully employed for many years.  
         [0007]     Perhaps it is a gross understatement to suggest that earnings from bank cards are quite impressive. It has been determined that there are approximately two hundred million bank cards in the United States alone, each carrying an average monthly balance of $2,500.00 noting further that card holders average $250.00 per month in new purchases. Many of these cards, particularly those providing for purchasing incentives such as airline mileage require annual fees. Further, interest rates, as noted previously, tend to be quite high because of the unsecured nature of the bank card loans. In addition, vendors who accept bank cards for purchases must pay an interchange fee to the lending institution, a portion of which also is creditable to the bank card issuing organization. Each of these component parts add to the profitability which lending institutions and bank card companies enjoy.  
         [0008]     It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a novel incentive program to encourage the use of a specific bank credit, debit or ATM card over all others.  
         [0009]     It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a lottery feature to applicant&#39;s bank card to encourage use of this card over its competition.  
         [0010]     These and further objects will be more readily apparent when considering the following disclosure and appended claims.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0011]     A method of purchasing goods or services through the use of a bank credit, debit or ATM card, said card being issued to consumers as a means of identifying the consumers and for extending credit to the consumers for the purchase of goods or services. The method comprises tracking the purchases by said consumers and providing purchase information to a receiving body, said receiving body being authorized by said consumers to purchase tickets in a lottery sanctioned by a governmental agency.  
         [0012]     As an alternative, lottery tickets, made available from an authorized lottery agency, can be purchased by the card holding consumer directly whereby the receiving body can communicate with the lottery agency in providing the value of “credits” based upon the credit card usage engaged in by the consumer.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES  
       [0013]     The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limited in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which:  
         [0014]      FIG. 1  illustrates a network environment that can be used to implement embodiments of the present invention; and  
         [0015]      FIGS. 2 and 3  are flow charts that illustrate the steps of the present invention according to a preferred method as described below.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0016]     The present invention is intended to, in its preferred embodiment, take advantage of electronic commerce and employs various hardware and software implementations as disclosed in parent application Ser. No. 11/089,693, filed on Mar. 24, 2005, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,168,616, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. The distributed electronic commerce environment contemplated for use herein includes a computer network system that links to one or more server computers and one or more client computers, as well as server computers networked to other service computers and client computers to other client computers. The client servers and server computers include desktop personal computers, work station computers, mobile computers, portable computing devices, personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, or any other similar type of computing device. The steps of accessing, downloading and manipulating the data, as well as other aspects of the parent invention are implemented by central processing units (CPU) and the server and client computers executing sequences of instruction stored in memory. The memory can be a random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), a persistent store, such as a mass storage device, or any combination of these devices. Execution of sequences of instructions cause the CPU to perform steps according to embodiments of the present invention. Applicant&#39;s parent applications were directed to entering a bank card user into a lottery or similar game of chance based upon the amount of the user&#39;s purchases during a predetermined period of time as well as games of chance based merely upon a card holder owning a particular bank card to avoid the lottery feature aspect of the invention and thus insure that a member is compliant with regional and national prohibitions against establishing private lotteries. Prior methods involve establishing a pool for the distribution of lottery funds in direct proportion to the use of an applicant&#39;s bank card during a specific lottery period, holding the lottery, notifying lottery participants of the results. Funds for establishing the lottery pool included various elements associated with the credit card transaction, such as the typical interchange and transaction fees, interest on balance carry overs and annual fees charged by the card issuer to the user. Such proceeds can be recorded at a central facility such as a centralized computing facility.  
         [0017]     In recognizing the limit to prohibitions against establishing personal lotteries that are not government sanctioned, one could either associate with an entity that is legally in a position to offer gaming to bank card holders, such as an American Indian reservation, or provide a lottery feature based solely upon the ownership of the appropriate bank card where lottery participation is independent of card usage. For example, payment of an annual fee could result in the issuance of a predetermined number of lottery tickets. In other words, the mere ownership of the appropriate bank card would be enough to qualify a consumer as a potential recipient of a periodically awarded prize. By doing so, the gaming aspect of lottery participation is removed. The present invention, however, facilitates what amounts to lottery participation by card holders while not engaging in unauthorized gaming activities.  
         [0018]      FIG. 1  illustrates an overall computing environment  100  used to implement embodiments of this invention. Program components comprising the finance and gaming aspects of the invention are executed on one or more client  102  and server  104  computers coupled through a network  110 . The network  110  is a simple peer-to-peer connection, a private network (e.g., LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or the Internet. For the embodiment in which the network  110  comprises the Internet, the client and server computers communicate using an Internet protocol. In the World Wide Web environment, the network client computer  102  typically accesses the Internet network  110  through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and execute a web browser program to display data content through web pages. In one embodiment, the web browser program is implemented using Microsoft® Internet Explorer™ browser software, but other web browser programs are also taught to be useful. For the web-based implementation, the server computer  104  executes a web server process that serves web content from a web site  112  maintained on the server computer  104 .  
         [0019]     For the client-server or Internet embodiments, the system  100  is taught to include other networked servers, such as credit card, bank or financial service computers  106 , supplemental servers  103  that provide gaming or lottery services, or similar server computers. It is also noted that the network illustrated in  FIG. 1  is intended to include a plurality of server computers coupled to a plurality of client computers.  
         [0020]     In a typical bank card purchasing transaction a retail facility representing a remote purchasing location  101  accepts a bank card from a user  108  for purchase of goods or services. To accept the user&#39;s bank card, the retailer requests authorization for the purchase from a centralized computer (network server)  104  maintained by the user&#39;s bank or bank card issuer  107 . Upon completion of the purchase transaction, the transfer of funds through debit of the user&#39;s account or extension of credit to the user is confirmed with network server  104 , whereupon an electronic record is made of the purchase including its amount in association with the bank card holder whose identity and related information is of record with the card issuer  107 .  
         [0021]     The card issuer  107  is responsible for fulfilling the transaction between the buyer  108  and the retailer  101 . The card issuer may be a bank or credit card company. Alternatively, it may be a third party financial service provider that issues credit to the buyer. In this case, the card issuer  107  may be associated with or utilize the resources of a credit card company, such as Visa® or Mastercard®, in order to provide the issuance of credit to the user.  
         [0022]     In the practice of the present invention, consumer  108  can access a lottery server  120  which is typically done when lottery purchases are made. This can include the purchase of mega lotteries, weekly or bi-weekly drawings, daily drawings and even quick pick options. Unlike traditional lottery purchases where customer  108  would pay for lottery tickets directly, certain credits can be employed to pay for the lottery purchases emanating from card usage, i.e., dollars spent and/or transactions processed, as well as from interest received, interchange fees, annual fees and other sources of funds the bank may receive. In doing so, lottery  120 , upon receipt of a purchase request from consumer  108 , would access server  130 A in a receiving body  130  which exchanges information with card issuer  107  and its networked server  107 A. Thus, lottery tickets purchased by consumer  108  would be paid for by credits exchanged from receiving body  130  and its server  130 A thus obviating the need for consumer  108  to expend further resources for such a purchase. This obviously would encourage card usage by consumer  108  as the “credits” increase through card holder usage thus increasing the number of lottery tickets available for purchase.  
         [0023]     Alternatively, consumer  108  can deal directly with receiving body  130  by enabling receiving body  130  to track consumer spending using the appropriate bank card and bank “credits” on behalf of the consumer. Receiving body  130  can act as a “clearing house” for the purchase of lottery tickets directly on behalf of consumer  108  either due to a standing order or in the receipt of individualized purchasing instructions. For example, consumer  108  can inform receiving body  130  that each week, all banked “credits” should be used to purchase tickets of a specific lottery. Instructions could be detailed enough to provide that the receiving body only purchase lottery tickets if the lottery pool exceeds a threshold in value. Otherwise, the credits would continue to be banked within server  130 A. As a further alternative, periodic instructions can be provided by consumer  108  to receiving body  130  informing the receiving body to purchase specific lottery tickets at a particular time or interval which are instructions that could change at any time through the discretion of the consumer. As noted previously, particularly if purchases are not made directly but through the receiving body  130 , lottery numbers or other identifying indicia enabling consumer  108  to track identifying information and to associate it with a lottery drawing conducted at a later point in time can be included as a feature of the present invention. In addition to providing a consumer with a paper copy of lottery numbers attributable to credits provided a lottery from receiving body  130 , card issuer  107  could communicate pertinent lottery information to the bank card holders through website  112 . This could stimulate bank card usage.  
         [0024]      FIGS. 2 and 3  are flow charts of the present invention as described previously.  
         [0025]     Turning first to  FIG. 2 , in step  201 , the buyer purchases goods or services using a credit or bank card issued by an issuing company. In step  202 , a receiving body is notified of the use of the bank card by the buyer and the value of purchases made in the transaction. This creates “credits” on behalf of the buyer. In step  203 , the receiving body purchases tickets in a government sanctioned lottery for the consumer based upon the value of purchases or “credits.” As noted previously, this can be the result of a standing order or the result of individually placed orders at the discretion of the buyer. In step  204 , the receiving body confirms lottery purchases to enable a consumer to track participation and become aware of results. As noted, this can be through the Internet. In step  205 , the alternative is shown whereby the buyer communicates lottery purchase preferences at each transaction. Similarly, step  206  shows that the buyer can provide a standing order to enable the receiving body to purchase lottery tickets.  
         [0026]     An alternative embodiment is depicted in  FIG. 3 . As was the case previously,  301  indicates a first step where the buyer purchases goods or services using a credit or bank card issued by an issuing company. The consumer could then directly contact a government sanctioned lottery providing purchasing instructions from the consumer while accessing the consumer&#39;s account from a suitable receiving company as indicated in step  302 . Alternatively, the consumer could notify the receiving body of use of the credit card for purchases made in a transaction. This is noted in step  305  whereupon the receiving body would deal with the government sanctioned lottery directly either through a standing order placed by the consumer or by individual instructions periodically received. In step  303 , the lottery would then issue tickets to the consumer based upon consumer instructions and “credits” banked by the receiving company and, as noted in step  304 , the lottery results can be reported and the credit balance provided to the consumer and receiving company.  
         [0027]     As an alternative, the lottery could deal directly with the receiving company and not the consumer in any fashion thus receiving instructions from the receiving body and providing lottery results and payouts, if any, to the receiving body. These would then be banked by the receiving body on behalf of the buyer.  
         [0028]     In the foregoing, a system has been described integrating lottery or similar gaming features with use of a credit or bank card. Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention is set forth in the claims. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded as illustrative rather than in a restrictive sense.