Patents Examined by Sun M Li
  • Patent number: 11042892
    Abstract: A reward card platform includes a database storing funding accounts, reward card purchase transactions, reward card brand options, and denomination options. The platform provides a user interface for purchasing reward cards from multiple third party suppliers. The user interface commits reward card purchase transactions using the funding accounts and specified reward card brand and denomination options. The platform obtains reward card items from supplier APIs corresponding to specified reward card brand and denomination options. The platform includes a buffer storing reward card inventory items.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 22, 2021
    Assignee: Tango Card, Inc.
    Inventors: J J Zabkar, Israel E. Evans, James A. Johnston, Gregory S. Lee, Chek T. Lim
  • Patent number: 11037187
    Abstract: There are provided systems and methods for cross-platform tracking of user generated data for unified data output. A computing device may be utilized to access an online platform and perform one or more processes, including viewing an online marketplace to purchase items in a transaction. The device may be used to browse items and items may be added to a digital shopping cart or other checkout process and interface. However, the device may not finish electronic transaction processing for the items and may abandon the digital cart on a first platform used by the user. When a user uses a second online platform to shop and generate another digital cart, a cross-platform process may retrieve the previously abandoned cart's data, and may generate output for display of the previous cart with the new cart in the second platform's user interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 15, 2021
    Assignee: PAYPAL, INC.
    Inventors: Braden Christopher Ericson, Joshua Greenwell
  • Patent number: 11023914
    Abstract: A system and methods to mutually satisfy a consumer with a discount and a vendor with a minimum number of sales by establishing a tipping point associated with an offer for a good or service. If the tipping point is met, the sale of the good or service is executed and the consumer is charged and receives an indication of the discounted sale, such as a certificate. If the tipping point is not met, the discount offer is abandoned and the consumer is not charged. Once the tipping point is established, the vendor receives a payment, even before the consumer uses the certificate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 1, 2021
    Assignee: Groupon, Inc.
    Inventor: Andrew Mason
  • Patent number: 11017411
    Abstract: Provided is a method for presenting images with embedded links for multi-channel redemption in a user interface. The method includes displaying an image including a first selectable portion and a second selectable portion, wherein a first link is embedded in the first selectable portion and points to a portal under control of a transaction handler, the first link identifying an offer for a merchant including at least one condition, and wherein a second link is embedded in the second selectable portion and points to the merchant. The method further includes, in response to a user selecting the first selectable portion of the image and following the first link, identifying, by the transaction handler and/or the portal, the user and an account of the user, and associating, by the transaction handler and/or the portal under control of the transaction handler, the offer with the account of the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 25, 2021
    Assignee: Visa U.S.A. Inc.
    Inventors: John Hamilton MacIlwaine, Kirsten Garen, Mark Carlson, George William Coombes, IV, Russell P. Zink, Patrick Stan, Surendra Keshan
  • Patent number: 11004092
    Abstract: Provided is a method for presenting images with embedded links for multi-channel redemption in a user interface. The method includes displaying an image including a first selectable portion and a second selectable portion, wherein a first link is embedded in the first selectable portion and points to a portal under control of a transaction handler, the first link identifying an offer for a merchant including at least one condition, and wherein a second link is embedded in the second selectable portion and points to the merchant. The method further includes, in response to a user selecting the first selectable portion of the image and following the first link, identifying, by the transaction handler and/or the portal, the user and an account of the user, and associating, by the transaction handler and/or the portal under control of the transaction handler, the offer with the account of the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 11, 2021
    Assignee: Visa U.S.A. Inc.
    Inventors: John Hamilton MacIlwaine, Kirstin Garen, Mark Carlson, George William Coombes, IV, Russell P. Zink, Patrick Stan, Surendra Keshan
  • Patent number: 10977750
    Abstract: The present invention relates to the field of Internet of Things (IoT), and provides a gas pricing method based on a compound IoT and an IoT system. The method is applied to the system. The system includes a user platform, a service platform, a plurality of management sub-platforms, a sensor network platform and a plurality of object sub-platforms; and each of the object sub-platforms includes a gas meter. According to the gas pricing method based on the compound IoT and the IoT system, a user can sense the benefit of gas saving directly from a fee, thereby helping push a gas-saving social morality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2021
    Assignee: Chengdu Qinchuan loT Technology Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Zehua Shao
  • Patent number: 10970732
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and storage media for operating a wireless device are disclosed. Exemplary implementations may: select a consumer to provide feedback related to one or more transactions associated with the consumer; transmit, for display on a wireless device of the consumer, a survey comprising one or more questions related to the one or more transactions associated with the consumer; select an incentive offer from an incentive offer database; transmit, for display on the wireless device of the consumer, information related to the incentive offer; receive one or more responses to the survey; and fulfil the incentive offer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 6, 2021
    Assignee: MBP Insights, Inc.
    Inventor: James J. Simon
  • Patent number: 10963903
    Abstract: A workflow management system enables an entity to store information components in one or more publicly accessible databases, the information components associated with an acquisition by the acquisition entity. A unique entity identifier is associated with the information components in the databases, such that when reviewing entities access the information component via the databases and perform a similar event, a similar event object with the unique entity identifier is transmitted to the workflow management system. The information components may also be distributed by secondary entities, which may be automatically selected by the workflow management system based on historical data associated with respective secondary entities. When event objects initiated by information components stored by a secondary entity are received at the workflow management system, some or all of a maximum value increment associated with the acquisition is partitioned between the secondary entity and the acquisition entity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2021
    Assignee: Share Edge, LLC
    Inventors: Benjamin C. Stewart, Thomas E. Larkin, III
  • Patent number: 10937055
    Abstract: Merchants create ecommerce-enabled ad units advertising items offered by the merchants. The ad units contain functionality enabling customers to purchase the items by interacting with the ad units. The ad units have associated bid prices that the merchants agree to pay for sales through the ad units. The merchants provide the ad units to a broker. The broker publishes the ad units on web pages provided by publishers as comparison shop ad units that contain multiple ad units and functionality for navigating among them. A customer receiving a web page interacts with an ad unit to purchase the item. During the interactions, the broker dynamically updates the ad unit to conduct the transaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 8, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 2, 2021
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: David Chung, Rajas Moonka, Gokul Rajaram
  • Patent number: 10929900
    Abstract: A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, monitoring access by communication devices of second users to personal content associated with a first user, selecting advertisement content based on the monitoring of the access, and providing the advertisement content for presentation with the personal content when the personal content is accessed by a communication device of a third user. Other embodiments are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2021
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Aleksey Ivanov, Andrea Basso, Tara Hines, Jeffrey Mikan, Nadia Morris
  • Patent number: 10902420
    Abstract: An advertised incentive system receives advertised incentive configuration information provided by a merchant. The advertised incentive configuration information defines the content of advertised incentive banners. The advertised incentive banners are provided as needed to merchants to display on the merchant's website. Advertised incentive registration information is received from an account holder after the account holder interacts with the advertised incentive banner. Transaction information is received that contains a qualified purchase made by the account holder. The advertised incentive registration and the qualified purchase are matched. A statement credit is issued against the account holder's account and a debit is issued against the merchant's account in the amount of the statement credit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2021
    Assignee: Visa International Service Association
    Inventors: John Hamilton MacIlwaine, Patrick Stan, Surendra Keshan, Mark Carlson
  • Patent number: 10902458
    Abstract: A system and method for optimizing marketing campaigns is presented. Two marketing campaigns are received. Each is presented to a subset of users. The conversion rates of both marketing campaign are used to determine weighting of the two marketing campaigns. The weighting is determined using a range of conversion rates and maximizing the minimum expected value through the range of conversion rates. The process can be iteratively performed to converge upon an optimum weighting of the first and second conversion rates. More than two marketing campaigns can be used. The marketing campaign can be an email marketing campaign, a web marketing campaign, or an advertising keyword campaign. Other embodiments also are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2021
    Assignee: WALMART APOLLO, LLC
    Inventors: Tao Zhu, Bin Li, Thanh Ngo, Fnu Manasi, Patrick Harrington
  • Patent number: 10885540
    Abstract: Systems and methods for providing campaign driven offer distribution include receiving, from a service provider device associated with a service provider, first campaign information for a first campaign. A first offer that has been configured to be irredeemable by the first customer and that includes a first offer condition associated with the first campaign information that must be satisfied to reconfigure the first offer to be redeemable by the first customer is provided for display on a first customer device. A notification indicating the first offer condition has been satisfied is received. In response to receiving the notification indicating the first offer condition has been satisfied, the first offer is reconfigured to be redeemable by the first customer. A notification indicating a status change with the first offer that causes the first offer to be displayed on the first customer device is communicated to the first customer device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2021
    Assignee: PAYPAL, INC.
    Inventors: Alexander Berger, Manas Garg
  • Patent number: 10878445
    Abstract: In an advertisement management system, an advertising server allows an advertiser of an internet advertisement to set one or more campaigns and one or more advertisement sets for each campaign and collects a plurality of performance information of each advertisement set. In an advertisement management device connected with the advertising server, a campaign management screen providing section makes a management terminal display a campaign management screen selectable a target campaign, an advertisement set management screen providing section displays one or more advertisement sets of the target campaign by a parallel coordinate graph and makes the management terminal display an advertisement set management screen selectable one or more target advertisement sets, and an advertisement set adjustment screen providing section makes the management terminal display an advertisement set adjustment screen adjustable operation information of one or more target advertisement sets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2020
    Assignees: SOCIAL GEAR PTE LTD
    Inventors: Shunsuke Sato, Kei Yamane
  • Patent number: 10861037
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods are described for determining a consumer's engagement with a brand of the business by tracking the consumer's activities in multiple platforms, such as social media platforms, content platforms, gaming platforms, other retailers, streaming video providers, service providers, etc. Method are described for probabilistically granting users variations of items that are otherwise being acquired. The granting may be random, but probabilities may be boosted based on the consumer's activities in the platforms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Comcast Spectacor, LLC
    Inventor: Tucker Roberts
  • Patent number: 10846723
    Abstract: A point calculation device includes a shaking determination unit configured to acquire weather information or detection information of a vibration sensor mounted on a vehicle and determine a shaking of the vehicle according to the acquired information and a point calculation unit configured to calculate use points for the vehicle according to a determination of the shaking determination unit from a departure location to an arrival location of the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: MITSUBISHI SHIPBUILDING CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kuniaki Yamato, Ryoichi Takei, Shinichi Taniguchi
  • Patent number: 10839405
    Abstract: An online services system provides monitoring of user interaction with third-party content. The monitoring is performed by a script in a web page provided by the online services system, which script provides a timer invoked when the browser leaves the online services system's page for a page comprising third party content. When the online services system serves the page, the browser reads the HTML to render the page, including the script with the timer. When the user leaves the online services system page, the timer begins, and when the browser returns to a page provided by the online services system, the timer ends and duration information from the timer is provided to the online services system. Applications include measurement of the quality of interaction between users and a third party advertisers, in which time spent viewing third party content is a proxy for the quality of the interaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventor: Thomas Giovanni Carriero
  • Patent number: 10832259
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus to provide an electronic agent are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a media receiver to receive media to present via a display device. A media monitor is to determine an identity of the media. A keyword handler is to, in response to identity of the media, retrieve a list including a keyword associated with the identified media. The keyword handler is to access a first database using the keyword to retrieve an advertisement associated with the keyword. An agent generator is to present an interactive electronic agent on the display device to present the advertisement. The presentation of the interactive electronic agent including presentation of spoken audio corresponding to text presented on the display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I, L.P.
    Inventors: David Dunmire, Brian Novack, Chad C. Keith, Jeff Clark
  • Patent number: 10810618
    Abstract: A process is disclosed for obtaining selected item data from a media processor, wherein the selected item data indicates an item used by an actor in a video data stream. The video data stream includes data representing the item used by the actor and icon data including multiple icons associated with a number of mobile devices. Selected icon data is obtained from the media processor, indicating a selected one of the number of mobile devices. Advertising data for the selected item is provided to the selected one of the number of mobile devices via a communication network. The advertising data is sent when the selected one of the number of mobile devices comes in proximity with a merchant having the selected item in stock. A system is disclosed for performing the process. A machine-readable device is also disclosed for use by the system and process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Roland Noll, Mary McCarthy
  • Patent number: 10810623
    Abstract: A method for generating an SMS business message for processing by a software application includes: a data collection interface accepting outgoing instructions and outgoing data from said software application; a message encoding engine encoding said outgoing instructions and outgoing data from said software application; using an encoding template to generate the SMS business message as a categorized SMS message formatted for processing by a data processing system; and a dispatcher runtime processor processing said SMS business message for transmission over a network to a recipient.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Rohit V. Kapoor, Jimmy W. Lo, Joanna W. Ng