Patents Examined by Matthew T Sittner
  • Patent number: 10339553
    Abstract: A system includes a transaction handler configured to split a transaction, initiated between an acquirer processor representing a merchant and an issuer processor representing an account holder, into separate transactions with the issuer processor and at least one sponsor processor that is configured to provide the benefit of offers to applicable transactions. A portal is configured to notify the account holder of the award/redemption of the benefit of an offer using a communication channel separate from the transaction terminal that initiates and approves the transaction between the account holder and the merchant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: Visa International Service Association
    Inventors: Joseph Bjorn Ovick, Mark Carlson, Ryan Hagey, Margaret Reid, Patrick Stan, Patrick Wright, Krishna Prasad Koganti, Glenn Powell, Phillip Lyle Kumnick
  • Patent number: 10325287
    Abstract: An online system, such as a social networking system, may determine user trends and identify actions to be taken by users that may help optimize revenue for an advertiser. A social networking system may generate offers for an advertiser based on the user trends, user characteristics, and claims about users where the offers include actions determined by the social networking system that users may take to help optimize revenue for advertiser. Venues may also sell ad space, ad inventory, and real-time customer data to advertisers through a social networking system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Samuel Lessin, Justin Alexander Shaffer
  • Patent number: 10318991
    Abstract: There are provided systems and methods for a communication device interface for merchant check-in and shopping notifications. A user may enter shopping preferences to a module of a communication device in order to receive notifications and alerts when items matching the shopping preferences are available with one or more merchants. A service provider may receive the shopping preferences with user attributes, such as a user location and/or account balance. The attributes may be determined using applications and/or modules of the communication device or through a check-in by the user at a location. The service provider may determine shopping notifications having purchase offers for the items from available merchants. The purchase offers may include offers to sell the items and discounts for the items. The shopping notifications may be displayed to the user using a user device interface, such as cells within an application or mobile device home screen.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 7, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: PAYPAL, INC.
    Inventor: Hyunju Lee
  • Patent number: 10318979
    Abstract: An instant operation may include one or more of creating a smart contract identifying content and review requirements for performing a review of the content, signing and validating the smart contract, storing the smart contract in a blockchain, receiving content review feedback from one or more reviewers of the content, and amending the blockchain to include the content review feedback.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Brandon Z. Frank, Joseph A. Latone
  • Patent number: 10318996
    Abstract: An auction apparatus according to the application includes a plan receiving unit and an auction providing unit. The plan receiving unit receives plan information indicating a plan of content from a content creator who creates the content. The auction providing unit presents the plan information received by the plan receiving unit and provides an auction service in which bid targets are a right to display an advertisement in an advertising space that is set to the content and a right to replace the advertisement displayed in the advertising space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: YAHOO JAPAN CORPORATION
    Inventors: Toru Takata, Nobuyuki Akashi, Akira Tajima, Koji Tsukamoto, Nari Woo, Akihiro Tanabe, Shinichiro Sega, Rin Katou
  • Patent number: 10311448
    Abstract: A method of operating a digital signage system. The method includes creating at least one user account, creating or retrieving a display content to be displayed on a display device, searching for a display location and at least one display device associated with the display location, and sending a request to display the content on at least one selected display device. The method further includes automatically downloading the content to be displayed on the selected display device, automatically processing a payment from a first user account to a second user account that is associated with the display device, and displaying the content on the selected display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Inventors: William Eugene Urban, Shawn Thomas Tomovick
  • Patent number: 10311457
    Abstract: A computerized reward mechanism system is proposed which makes use both of presently collected data relating to the customer, and a database of historical data relating to the customer. Using this information, the system performs a customer preference analysis, which results in selecting rewards which are adapted to the customers' personal needs. In one form, the system is positioned at a shopping center, and includes cameras for recognising past customers by image processing. This may be done without requiring customers to participate in a process of signing up to use the system. The presently collected data include responses to questions put to the customer relating to his present shopping experience. Customer honesty is considered in the step of determining which rewards to offer the consumer, to encourage the consumers to express their feelings more clearly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Assignee: Nanyang Technological University
    Inventors: Siyuan Liu, Xiaogang Han, Zhiqi Shen, Chunyan Miao
  • Patent number: 10311479
    Abstract: A system for producing promotional media content includes a strategic meta information analysis processing unit configured to process various types of pieces of strategic meta information in various formats to an unstructured data batch having a certain weight value, a media content analysis processing unit configured to classify and analyze each meta information by similarity by using meta information of various types of media content or meta information actively extracted by analyzing each media content, an association analyzing unit configured to calculate association between strategic meta information processed through the strategic meta information analysis processing unit and the media content processed through the media content analysis processing unit, and a media content synthesizing unit configured to finally synthesize promotional media content by using the various types of strategic meta information, the media content, and the association information calculated by the association analyzing unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Assignee: KOREAN ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE
    Inventors: Jong Bin Park, Tae beom Lim, Kyung Won Kim, Jong Jin Jung, Jae won Moon, Seung Woo Kum
  • Patent number: 10304093
    Abstract: Provided herein are systems, methods and computer readable media for programmatically generating and/or revising deal offers for a merchant based on one or more merchant self-service indicators. In providing such functionality, the system can be configured to, for example, facilitate registration and verification of merchant identities, monitor and analyze various deal offers for merchants with similar merchant self-service indicators, that enable the system to determine the relative successfulness of a deal offer for a merchant and/or category of merchant. In some embodiments, the system may be further configured to revise the deal offer programmatically and/or upon receiving the merchant's approval of the programmatically generated proposed edits to the deal offer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: GROUPON, INC.
    Inventors: Francisco Jose Larrain Wicha, Lori E. Kaplan, Matias Esteban Arenas, Gaston L'Huillier, Ricardo Andres Zilleruelo Ramos, Rodrigo Alfonso Duenas Fernandez, Amit Koren
  • Patent number: 10304091
    Abstract: Systems, methods and computer readable media for providing a point-of-sale system that can be configured to facilitate the sale of products and transmit transaction data to a cloud based system are provided herein. The cloud based system can be maintained by a promotional party and be configured to generate deal offers and/or provide other services based on the transaction data received. In some embodiments, a fee may be charged for some or all of the services offered and/or the transactional data provided to the promotional system may be governed by an agreement between the promotional party and the merchant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: GROUPON, INC.
    Inventors: Nathaniel Blake Scholl, Yishai Lerner, Francisco Larrain, Joshua Puckett
  • Patent number: 10296942
    Abstract: An advertisement choosing device chooses an advertisement to be displayed in a display space of a predetermined size. The advertisement choosing device includes an advertisement storing unit and an advertisement choosing unit. The advertisement storing unit stores therein sizes of multiple advertisements of various sizes. The advertisement choosing unit chooses, from among the multiple advertisements, one or more advertisements whose total size is equal to or less than the size of the display space as the advertisement to be displayed in the display space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 21, 2019
    Assignee: YAHOO JAPAN CORPORATION
    Inventors: Akira Tajima, Koji Tsukamoto
  • Patent number: 10282755
    Abstract: A method for mobile advertising conversion attribution can include receiving, for example, at a conversion tracking server, a signal from a user device indicating that a conversion tag has been received. The signal can include a segment identifier, and a user agent (UA) and/or an internet protocol (IP) address of the user device. A conversion identifier can be defined that is associated with the segment identifier, the UA, and/or the IP address. The conversion identifier can be stored in a first database along with an indication of when the conversion identifier was received. A second database can be searched for an advertisement identifier that matches the conversion identifier and was received within a predetermined period of time before the conversion identifier. If a match between the conversion identifier and an advertisement identifier is located, a signal indicating that an advertisement was converted can be sent to an advertiser.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Assignee: Dstillery, Inc.
    Inventor: Thomas O'Reilly
  • Patent number: 10282798
    Abstract: In some embodiments, a client driven referral management method may include: receiving the credentials of a member through a user device and a remote member through a user device; recording the consent of the member and the remote member to a referral fee agreement; associating a client with the member on the server when the client provides registration data to the server using a user device; recording real estate information browsing data and location data of the client with the user device of the client; assigning the remote member to the client, in which the remote member may be assigned by the server using the real estate information browsing data and location of client with the user device of the client; and notifying the member through a user device of the member of a real estate transaction involving the remote member and the client.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Inventor: Raymond J. Sheppard
  • Patent number: 10282747
    Abstract: Techniques for providing content to a computing device of a user are described. For example, a platform hosts a plurality of tools includes an analytics tool and a content tool. Input of a customer of the platform is received and specifies user segments and content to be provided accordingly. The tools are updated based on the customer input. User interactions of the user are also received and analyzed by, for example, the analytics tool. The analytics tool outputs an indication that the user is associated with a user segment based on the analysis. The output identifies the user segment and the user based on a format usable by the other tools. In turn, the content tool automatically receives and uses the output as an input to determine the content and the target of the content. Accordingly, the content tool provides the content to the computing device of the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Assignee: Adobe Inc.
    Inventors: Anil Sachdev, Thomas Greger, Brandon Pack
  • Patent number: 10282750
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for synchronising advertisements published on a group communications network with advertisements in a broadcast, the apparatus comprising: a receiver for receiving broadcast data; a communications interface in communication with a group communications network; a broadcast data content extractor adapted to derive search terms and advert data from the received broadcast data, the advert data relating to an advert received in the broadcast data, wherein on receipt of a query by a user of the group communications network, the query comprising one or more of the search terms, the communications interface publishes a group communication comprising at least a portion of the advert data on the group communications network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Lee Andrew Carre, Daniel Fairs, Andrew Wheatley Littledale, Edward Robert Littledale
  • Patent number: 10275801
    Abstract: User profile information is generated which characterizes measured user interaction with an application program that is encapsulated by the computer readable program code and processed by the processor. Operation of an advertisement displayed while the application program is being processed is controlled based on the user profile information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2019
    Assignee: CA, INC.
    Inventor: Jonathan Lindo
  • Patent number: 10268985
    Abstract: In some embodiments, the present invention is directed to a specifically programmed virtual gaming computer system, including: a specialized computer machine which, when executing particular program code, is configured to perform at least: electronically causing, via a computer network, to display a specialized dynamic real-time updatable graphical user interface, including: a tool programmed to allow a particular user to add, to a visual representation of a particular virtual business, a real-life product, a real-life service, or both, which are being displayed via an electronic on-line presence of a third party; where the specifically programmed virtual gaming computer system is configured to at least: i) create a software object to represent the real-life product or the real-life service and 2) maintain an electronic interface with a computer inventory management program of the third party to track availability and fulfillment of the real-life product and the real-life service.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 4, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2019
    Assignee: Stocket, Inc.
    Inventors: Mike Grimaldi, Samantha Grimaldi, Guillaume Riviere, Eric Weiss
  • Patent number: 10262341
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a resource downloading method and device. The above method includes: performing a dynamic detection on a DOM tree of a web page where resources to be downloaded are located, acquiring a plurality of URL resources; filtering out a part of URL resources corresponding to advertisement data from the plurality of URL resources; and prompting a user to download remaining URL resources after the advertisement data are filtered out. With the technical solution provided by the present invention, a user can acquire media files which the user is interested in from web pages that provide online playing only at will, thereby greatly improving user experience.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2019
    Assignee: ZTE Corporation
    Inventor: Gang Cao
  • Patent number: 10255615
    Abstract: A system and method for presenting advertising, the method including but not limited to presenting on a first end user device, a first personalized advertisement in a first avatar's view of a virtual world and presenting on a second end user device, a second personalized advertisement in a second avatar's view of the virtual world.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2019
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Keith Aubrey Crowe, James Pratt, Marc Andrew Sullivan
  • Patent number: 10255620
    Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed to improve generation of fine print for promotions. The method includes receiving identifying information that identifies one or more locations and either a product or service, transmitting the identifying information, and receiving, based on the identifying information, information including a set of relevant fine print clause data structures. The method further includes displaying, by a user interface, one or more fine print clauses from the relevant fine print clause data structures and generating, using a processor, a configured fine print data structure based on the displayed fine print clauses and input received via the user interface. Finally, the method includes transmitting the configured fine print data structure. A corresponding apparatus and computer program product are also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2019
    Assignee: GROUPON, INC.
    Inventors: Amit Koren, Francisco Larrain, Tanya Koshy, Karan Kaushik, Ricardo Zilleruelo, Matias Arenas, Kavita Kochar, Stephen Wooten