Source: http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20010007098
Timestamp: 2017-11-24 09:09:18
Document Index: 348766820

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 810', 'art 1125', 'art 1125', 'art 1125', 'art 1125', 'art 1125']

Patent US20010007098 - Gift certificate award and exchange program and method - Google Patents
A method and an apparatus for providing employee gift certificates award and exchange are described. The method and apparatus enable the award of a certificate either automatically upon an occurrence of a designated event, such as a birthday, or upon request, such as by a manager. The method and system...http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20010007098?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US20010007098 - Gift certificate award and exchange program and method
Publication number US20010007098 A1
Application number US 09/777,527
Publication number 09777527, 777527, US 2001/0007098 A1, US 2001/007098 A1, US 20010007098 A1, US 20010007098A1, US 2001007098 A1, US 2001007098A1, US-A1-20010007098, US-A1-2001007098, US2001/0007098A1, US2001/007098A1, US20010007098 A1, US20010007098A1, US2001007098 A1, US2001007098A1
Inventors Susan Hinrichs, Diogo Rau, Hongyu Ximen, Joseph Bach
Original Assignee Hinrichs Susan E., Rau Diogo P., Hongyu Ximen, Joseph Bach
Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (112), Classifications (9), Legal Events (2)
Gift certificate award and exchange program and method
US 20010007098 A1
A method and an apparatus for providing employee gift certificates award and exchange are described. The method and apparatus enable the award of a certificate either automatically upon an occurrence of a designated event, such as a birthday, or upon request, such as by a manager. The method and system also enable the employee to exchange the certificate for goods from various merchants over the internet using a single point shopping cart. The shopping cart accesses the various merchants' sites, searches for specific purchase-related fields, creates a database of those fields, and creates a hyperlink to that merchant's site. When the employee wishes to access the merchant's site, the shopping cart acts as a proxy for the user, but also monitors the communication for specific requests. If a specific request, such as add to cart, has been identified, the shopping cart doesn't relay this request to the merchant's shopping cart, but rather fetches relevant shopping data from the fields database and composes a purchase order which is sent to the merchant's site. The amount of the purchase is applied against the certificate.
1. A method for creating and managing an electronic gift certificate award and exchange program, comprising:
creating primary accounts database, each primary account defining a spending amount;
creating a single-point shopping cart site comprising links to commercial shopping web sites and fields database corresponding to said commercial shopping web sites;
providing an awardee with a gift certificate code;
enabling said awardee an access to said shopping cart using said gift certificate code and assigning a spending amount to said awardee;
accepting purchase requests for a product from one of said commercial shopping web sites from said awardee and placing a purchase order with said commercial shopping web sites; and,
deducting the purchase amount from said spending amount.
, wherein said providing an awardee with a gift certificate code comprises composing and sending an email to said awardee, wherein said email includes said certificate code.
, wherein said composing and sending step comprises enabling a primary user access to one of said primary accounts and using data entered by said primary user to generate said award email, and wherein said spending account is assigned from a primary account assigned to said primary user.
monitoring an individuals database for events; and,
whenever an event is encountered, composing and sending said email to said awardee corresponding to the encountered event.
, wherein said step of assigning a spending amount comprises selecting an amount corresponding to the encountered event.
, wherein the step of creating a single-point shopping cart site comprises:
accessing the plurality of said commercial shopping web sites and, for each selected web site of the plurality of commercial shopping web sites:
creating entries for said merchandise and purchase related fields in said fields database on a proxy site;
, wherein the step of accepting purchase requests further comprises:
monitoring web requests received from said awardee and:
when one of said web requests is for data from a selected site of said commercial shopping web sites, relaying the request to said site;
when one of said web requests is for a purchase of a product from said selected site, fetching purchase data from said fields database corresponding to said site, displaying at least part of said purchase data, composing a purchase order using at least part of said purchase data, and sending said purchase order to said selected site.
8. A gift certificate award and exchange system, comprising:
a composer operable to compose and send an award email to an awardee, including a certificate code;
a single-point shopping cart comprising links to commercial shopping web sites and fields database corresponding to said commercial shopping web sites;
a request monitor operable to monitor web requests received from said awardee and:
when one of said web requests is for a purchase of a product from said selected site, comparing the product's price with the amount indicated by said certificate code and, if acceptable, composing a purchase order and sending said purchase order to said selected site.
, wherein said single-point shopping cart further comprises:
a proxy site;
a screen scraper engine operable to access the plurality of said commercial shopping web sites and, for each selected web site of the plurality of commercial shopping web sites:
identify merchandise and purchase related fields in said selected web site;
create entries for said merchandise and purchase related fields in said fields database on a proxy site;
create a hyperlink on said proxy site linking to the selected web site.
at least one manager account defining credit amount therein; and,
wherein when said composer sends an award email to an awardee, including a certificate code, said certificate code is associated with an assigned gift amount from said credit amount.
, further comprising an event database operable to scan for events and, when an event is detected, cause said composer to compose and send said award email.
, wherein said request monitor is further operable to insert tags into web pages received in replay to said web requests, said tag directing web address to objects relating to said web pages.
This application is a continuation of Provisional Patent Application 60/180,615 filed Feb. 7, 2000 and Provisional Patent Application 60/181,235 filed Feb. 9, 2000; and is further a continuation in part of patent application 09/475,744, filed Dec. 30, 1999.
For example, the premium company's database may include only the employee number, day and month of birthday, and the date the employee joined the company. When the premium company sends a prompt to the employer's server, the prompt may include only the employee number and an event code (e.g., anniversary, birthday, etc.). The employer's server uses the employee code to fetch the pertinent information (e.g. employee name, manager's name, etc.) from the company's HR database, and uses that information to formulate the recognition e-mail In this way, only minimal amount of information resides in the premium company's database. Also, since the manager's name can be fetched from the HR database, the e-mail can be structured as if it is sent by the employee's manager.
According to another embodiment, a “screen scrapping” engine is used to construct and operate the shopping cart without having to pre-negotiate terms with the various merchants. Specifically, the engine access various merchants' sites and checks the pages to find and record all the fields available on the site. It then enables access to that merchant from the shopping cart site. When a user accesses the merchant's site, the shopping cart acts as a proxy and the engine monitors all communication between the user and merchants for tracking of specific fields. When it recognizes a specific input in a specific field, it performs a corresponding operation. For example, upon recognizing a purchase field, it intercepts the order and adds it to the shopping cart of a service provider, rather than shopping cart of the merchant. It then monitors for a price, quantity, etc., fields to complete the placement of the order. Consequently, there's no need to pre-negotiate with the merchant and competitor merchants can be made available on the shopping cart to enable comparisons.
If the P1 and P2 information is included only in the hyperlink sent to the employee, then when the employee logs onto the premium company's web site, the server checks the PI information to verify that the email address matches an address from a member company, and checks the P2 information to determine on which areas of the site the employee may access and which type of awards he may select. However, preferably, the P1 and P2 information is also sent to the premium company, so that when the employee clicks of the hyperlink and enters the premium company's server, the server compares the P1 and P2 data for verification. Of course, once the employee logs onto the premium company's server, cookies can be used in a known manner to store appropriate passwords and other codes on the employee's computer for future logon verification.
When a user 800 accesses shopping cart 810, the user may select to shop at any merchant available on shopping cart 810. So, for example, when the user selects icon 821, shopping cart 810 sends an Http: request to merchant 820. As can be understood, since the Http: request was originated by the shopping cart 810, merchant 820 sends the requested html page to shopping cart 810. Shopping cart 810 then sends that html page to user 800. In this manner, from the user 800 perspective, the requested page has arrived directly from merchant 820. Furthermore, when user 800 clicks any icons on the requested html page, the icon request is sent to shopping cart 810, since from user 800 computer, shopping cart 810 was the originator of html page. When the shopping cart 810 receives such an icon generated Http: request, it forwards it to the merchant 820. That is, shopping cart 810 acts as a proxy and the user 800 has the experience as if he shops directly at the merchant 820 web site.
The shopping cart 810 is particularly advantageous for use in conjunction with the award program described above, which can be appreciated from the following example. User 800 receives an award email, from employer 840 for example, which includes a gift certificate and an award code. User 800 then logs onto shopping cart 810 and enters the award code. Shopping cart then verifies the code and, if valid, establishes or associates an award account for user 800. The user may then click on any of the merchants' icons displayed at shopping cart 810 and shop at any of the merchants' sites. The shopping would be conducted with the shopping cart acting as a proxy, as explained above. When the shopping cart recognizes a “buy” order from the user 800, the shopping cart sends a request to user 800 to input shipping address, shipping method etc. The shopping cart then totals the amount of purchase and deducts it from the award credit available to user 800, and displays it to the user. Additionally, the shopping cart fetches from the fields database the appropriate fields for order placing with the selected merchant. Shopping cart 810 inserts the shipping address and quantity obtained from user 800, but in the charge field it doesn't insert charging information of user 800, but rather that of the entity issuing the gift certificate, or of the shopping cart company itself In this manner, the gift certificate can be used at any merchant or combination of merchants and is not limited to a single issuing merchant.
Yet another feature which is very beneficial for use with a proxy arrangement is depicted in FIG. 10. This feature may be used in any proxy arrangement, including the embodiments of the proxy shopping carts detailed herein. In FIG. 10, user 1000 accesses target sites 1020 and 1030 via proxy 1010. For example, proxy site 1010 includes hyperlinks to target sites 1020 and 1030. When user 1000 clicks on any of the hyperlinks, proxy 1010 generates and Http: request for the index page of the target site. For example, when user 1000 clicks on icon for target site 1020, an Http: request, 1005, for that index page is generated at user 1000 and sent to proxy 1010. Proxy 1010 then generates an Http: request 1015 for the index page and sends it to the target site 1020. Target site 1020 generates an Html reply 1015 and sends it to the proxy 1010. Proxy 1010 then sends the Html reply to user 1000. This process is also followed for other Http: page requests other than the index page request.
As is well known in the art, web page html often includes images that need to be downloaded from the target site for display at the user computer. However, while web pages generally total a few kilobytes to a few tens of kilobytes, each image is generally several tens of kilobytes and the several images for one page can easily amount to a few hundreds of kilobyte. Thus, if a web page includes five images, downloading the images for the page may create high traffic at the proxy. However, according to the embodiment exemplified in FIG. 10, such traffic is eliminated. Specifically, a “mini-program” 1080, such as a Java applet or Javascript code is downloaded from proxy 1010 to user 1000. Program 108 examines and directs web traffic at user 1000. When program 1080 identifies an Http: request for a web page, it routes it to the proxy 1010. However, when the program 1080 identifies a request for image to be displayed within the page, it routes it directly to the target site, as exemplified by double-headed arrow 125. Consequently, heavy image traffic is avoided at proxy 1010.
However, a problem exists in the prior art when the cookies are uploaded via the proxy 1010. Specifically, as is known in the prior art, when an Http: request arrives at a target site from a proxy site, anything sent from the target site would be sent to the proxy site. Thus, for example, if an Http: request is sent from proxy 1010 to target site 1020, the html reply would be sent to proxy 1010, and proxy 1010 would send the received Html reply to user 1000, inserting proxy 1010 address as an originator of the Html reply. The same procedure applies to cookies. That is, if in reply to the http: request target site uploads a cookie, the cookie will have target site 1020 address as an origination identifier and will be sent to proxy 1010. The cookie will then be forwarded to user 1000 with proxy address 1010 as an origination identifier. Thus, all cookies passed via proxy 1010 are saved at user 1000 with proxy 1010 address as an origination identifier. Consequently, if at a later time user 1000 accesses any target site directly, i.e., not via the proxy 1010, the previously downloaded cookie will not be identified as originating from that target site and another cookie will be downloaded.
It should be noted that since the various purchase order fields of the particular merchant can be fetched from fields database 1190, the shopping cart 1125 can request the appropriate information from the employee 1190. The fields may include, example, name, shipping address, shipping method, etch. Alternatively, the shopping cart 1125, acting as a proxy, transfer the information requests from the merchant, but use either the screen scraper 1150 or mini-program 1155 to strip the information from the responses sent by the employee 1155 and use the stripped information to construct the order using the fields from the fields database 1195. Another alternative is for shopping cart 1125, used as a proxy, to allow all information requests from the merchant to pass through to the employee and all responses from the employee to pass through to the merchant. However, when a request from a merchant for a charge account or payment is detected by the screen scraper 1150 or mini-program 1155, the request is intercepted and a replay is generated by the shopping cart 1125 using charge account of the company 1100 or service provider 1110. In this manner, all purchase and shipping information is sent from the employee 1190 to the merchant, except for payment information—which is sent from the shopping cart 1125.
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U.S. Classification 705/14.23, 705/26.1
Cooperative Classification G06Q30/0222, G06Q30/0601, G06Q30/02
European Classification G06Q30/02, G06Q30/0601, G06Q30/0222
Owner name: BEYONDWORKS, INC., CALIFORNIA
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:HINRICHS, SUSAN E.;RAU, DIOGO P.;XIMEN, HONGYU;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:011521/0805;SIGNING DATES FROM 20010202 TO 20010205