Patent AU-2012101215-A4 (AU)
Title: System and method for crowd-funded selection and reward contest
Inventor: LUTZ MARIA CLAUDIA
IPC: G06Q30/02
Filed: 2012-08-10
Granted: 2012-09-13
Abstract: Name of the Invention System and Method for crowd-funded selection and reward contest Inventors Maria Claudia Lutz Andrea Guerrero Applicant Romma Holdings Pty Ltd Address 68 Sir Thomas Mitchell Dr Davidson. NSW 2085 Abstract Crowd-funding is described as where beneficiaries receive funds form an open community in a commercial or non-commercial fashion. In commercial crowd-funding activities individuals in the open community expect a commercial reward for their contribution. Rewards for example can be interest on the amount provided or participation on the proceedings from a project or enterprise that is funded by the amount provided. In non-commercial crowd-funding activities, individuals in the open community expect no commercial reward on their contribution. Crowd-funding systems typically provide a plurality of projects for individuals in an open community to fund. Whilst those projects are typically searchable and classifiable, there is no contest methodology to eliminate less popular projects in order to increase the visibility of those projects that have been chosen as being more popular by community. Furthermore, crowd-funding systems do not typically redistribute funds to maximize the funding received by the most popular projects neither they allow individuals in the community to decrease or reallocate the funds allocated to a project. In accordance with the present invention, a system and method are provided which allow project owners to compete for attracting funds for their projects from an open community and provides project owners with tools to allow the promotion of their projects in said community. Projects that do not meet predefined criteria are recurrently removed until there is only one project left. Project owners are not allowed to submit new projects for a set period of time. Individuals in the open community can allocate points to projects, each point being equivalent to a monetary amount paid by said individuals. Positive points increase the total amount of points of a project and negative points reduce the total amount of points allocated to a project. The total amount of points allocated to a project is allocated to the project owner. Project owners are rewarded when their project is removed from the system or when the project is the only project in the system and the reward is calculated based on their accumulated number of points, the number active projects in the system, and the accumulated number of negative points for all projects. Many of the features will be more readily appreciated as they become better understood by reference to the detailed description considered in connection with the accompanying drawings. Active project owners submit Projects Project owners promote projects Open community members provide funding Projects are selected based on set Criteria Access Reward Function for each project 105 owner 10 Active Projects >1 Yes No End Active project owners submit Projects 101/\ Project owners promote projects Open community members provide funding Projects are selected based on set Criteria Access Reward Function for each project 10 owner 10 Active Projects >1 Yes No End