Patents Examined by Brendon Beheshti
  • Patent number: 10832272
    Abstract: A method includes determining, by a controller, a distance between a baggage owner and at least one piece of baggage of the baggage owner. The baggage owner is at a transportation hub. The method includes determining a first incentive to assign to the baggage owner based at least on the distance. The method includes assigning the first incentive to the baggage owner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Schayne Bellrose, Pasquale A. Catalano, Prach J. Chuaypradit, Andrew G. Crimmins, Nicholas W. Crimmins, Preston D. Lane, Juan D. Merchan, Rorie Paul Reyes
  • Patent number: 10825051
    Abstract: A method, computer system, and a computer program product for dynamic billboard advertisements is provided. The present invention may include determining that a vehicle is approaching a display location. The present invention may then include receiving a plurality of data associated with the approaching vehicle. The present invention may then include resolving an advertisement to be displayed based on the received plurality of data. The present invention may then include establishing the display location based on the received plurality of data. The present invention may finally include projecting the resolved advertisement at the established display location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Phillip D. Isaacs, Eric V. Kline, Sarbajit K. Rakshit
  • Patent number: 10699290
    Abstract: A system for processing a supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) may include a point-of-sale (POS) terminal and a SNAP administration server coupled to the POS terminal. The SNAP administration server may store SNAP eligible products, and store SNAP payment wallets each associated with a SNAP user and each having an associated credit value to be used toward purchase of the SNAP eligible products. The SNAP administration server may also store SNAP coupon wallets each associated with the SNAP user and each having an associated digital coupon value to be used toward the purchase of SNAP eligible products. The SNAP administration server may further determine whether products being purchased match the SNAP eligible products and, for each matching product, apply the associated digital coupon value and apply the associated credit value toward the purchase at the POS terminal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2020
    Assignee: INMAR GOVERNMENT SERVICES, LLC
    Inventors: Srinivasan Varadarajan, Gregory L. Kerr, L. David Mounts
  • Patent number: 10650414
    Abstract: A method of generating an audience of user equipment users according to a user-searchable index for audience curation. The method includes generating the user-searchable index for audience curation, receiving user input describing a user's desired characteristic of an audience as user-friendly input through a public-facing selection interface, and parsing the user input to generate a distributed search query complying with a search syntax of a search engine. The method further includes searching the user-searchable index to determine a quantity of prospective audience members having the desired characteristic, transmitting the quantity of prospective audience members to the user to cause a terminal of the user to display the quantity of prospective audience members on a display, and transmitting the query to a first network element configured to execute the query to perform a desired action of the user when the user approves the quantity of prospective audience members.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: Sprint Communications Company L.P.
    Inventors: Jason R. Delker, Wayne William Schroeder
  • Patent number: 10614459
    Abstract: When incentivizing vendors to give greater discounts on items or services offered or advertised to specific customers on a third-party website in exchange for reduced advertisement pricing, a vendor enters offer parameters (e.g., item or service for sale, price or discount amount, terms of the offer, a permitted number of acceptances of the offer, etc.) into a user interface along with target customer criteria (e.g., age, gender, minimum income, etc.). The target criteria is matched to customer profile data, and an advertisement generated using the offer parameter information is presented to customers whose profiles match the target criteria. In return for offering larger discounts, a cost per event (CPE) associated with the advertisement is reduced for the vendor. An invoice is generated and transmitted to the vendor, and upon receipt of payment, the advertisement provider remits a portion of the received payment to the website owner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2020
    Assignee: SEGMINT, INC.
    Inventors: Russel Robert Heiser, II, Nathan W. Shahan
  • Patent number: 10572900
    Abstract: Systems, methods and computer-readable media for detecting a mobile device and identifying a user of the device are provided. A wireless signature or other unique identifier of a device may be detected. User information for the device may be obtained from a secondary source independent of the mobile device. Once a user is identified, user information may be retrieved and the user identity and user information may be associated with a mobile device. When the mobile device is then detected at a later time (e.g., after the information has been associated with the device), one or more offers may be generated based on the associated information and/or the location of the device at the time it is detected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2020
    Assignee: Bank of America Corporation
    Inventors: Robert Justin Brown, Craig A. Froelich
  • Patent number: 10558993
    Abstract: A mobile device transaction system provides a mechanism by which a user of a mobile device may complete a transaction (for goods or services) with a merchant, using an electronic gift card, or other payment type, generated by through the transaction system and chosen to bypass payment using an authorized credit card, where the user is incentivized to use the mobile device transaction system by the award of rewards points to a user account at the time of the transaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 11, 2020
    Assignee: UNITED AIRLINES, INC.
    Inventors: David Oppenheim, Praveen Sharma
  • Patent number: 10540685
    Abstract: An advertisement distribution system, method, and computer readable medium (collectively, the “System”) is provided. The System may request posts containing a subject tag from social media operators. The posts may be made by merchants having a relationship with the System. The System may filter the posts based on filters, geographic data, and member preferences. The System may distribute the posts to members having a relationship with the System.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 18, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL RELATED SERVICES COMPANY, INC.
    Inventors: Jonathan J. Carroll, Hans-Jurgen Greiner, Padmaja Kodavanti, Gopinath Kondapally, Kevin H. Ringger, James Jerome Smart-Foster, Arun Swamy
  • Patent number: 10504132
    Abstract: The systems are generally configured to provide rewards. The systems are capable of syncing transaction accounts with one or more reward programs and one or more channels. Moreover, the systems are capable dynamically provisioning rewards in one or more subsets to a rewards program to distribute high, medium and low value rewards to a reward program throughout the duration of the program.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL RELATED SERVICES COMPANY, INC.
    Inventors: Priyabroto Chatterjee, Jaimie Daniels, Debasish Das, Kathleen King Goulart, Zhenling Huang, Marissa Eddings Lott, Anthony Mavromatis, Cristina Minervini, Olutokunbo Ojo-Ade, Sepehr Sarmadi, Venkat Varadachary
  • Patent number: 10339538
    Abstract: A method and system for generating recommendations across multiple product or service domains are disclosed. The system includes a plurality of domain servers for handling user events and for interfacing with users via the Internet, a database for storing the user events, and a recommendation engine. The recommendation engine further includes one or more computer programs containing instructions for collecting the user events across a plurality of product or service domains in the database, receiving a triggering event for recommendations, analyzing the user events to formulate correlations between the user events in the database, and generating recommendations in response to the triggering event in accordance with the correlations between the user events in the database. The disclosure uses user input data from different domains for producing recommendations in any of those domains. The disclosure allows for access to a greater amount of user input data which in turn improves the quality of recommendations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2004
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: OATH INC.
    Inventors: Steven K. Souders, Lars P. Nilsen, Scott A. Gatz, Ashvinkumar P. Patel
  • Patent number: 10192231
    Abstract: A mobile device transaction system provides a mechanism by which a user of a mobile device may complete a transaction (for goods or services) with a merchant, using an electronic gift card, or other payment type, generated by through the transaction system and chosen to bypass payment using an authorized credit card, where the user is incentivized to use the mobile device transaction system by the award of rewards points to a user account at the time of the transaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 29, 2019
    Assignee: UNITED AIRLINES, INC.
    Inventors: David Oppenheim, Praveen Sharma
  • Patent number: 10127565
    Abstract: A mobile handset device determines a physical activity performed by a user based on local sensor data. The local sensor data can include sensors within the mobile handset device and local sensors in communication with the mobile handset device. The mobile handset device provides an indicator of the physical activity to a publisher. The publisher targets advertisements based on the current activity or activity pattern of the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2018
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Thomas Phan
  • Patent number: 10108982
    Abstract: An advertiser participating in a method of targeting based on first party cookies may update its DNS record to include a subdomain that redirects to a server associated with an ad network. The ad network may incorporate that advertiser's subdomain in an ad pixel tag published on one or more of the advertiser's web pages, to set a cookie on the advertiser's domain. Specifically, when a user visits one of the advertiser's web pages, the ad pixel tag may be redirected by the advertiser's DNS update to an ad network server for receipt of a cookie that matches the subdomain. The ad network may distribute to its publishers an ad call that checks for the presence of any first party domain cookies set via the second stage, and then pass any such cookie data to the network's ad servers to decide which ad to serve.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2018
    Assignee: OATH (AMERICAS) INC.
    Inventors: Matthew M. Patton, Seth Demsey