System for utilizing information carriers in commercially used facilities

• US 20050177459A1
• Filed: 03/27/2003
• Published: 08/11/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Smart Point Media
• Original Assignee: Smart Point Media
• Inventors: Kratzenberg, Wolfgang, Stein, Siegfried
• Application Number:
  US10/511,948
• Publication Number:
  US 20050177459A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 27/00 Combined visual and audible advertising or displaying, e.g. for public address

Abstract

Disclosed is a system for utilizing existing information carriers used for advertising purposes or for directing traffic in shopping centers, leisure facilities and similar commercially used facilities which comprise goods stores and possibly restaurants or similar supply structures that are accessible and connected to each other via corridors and in which facility-owned means of transport (2) are made available to the public for transporting purchases and/or other objects. A plurality of information carriers is disposed across the surface area of the commercially used facility. A triggering device issuing at least one, preferably a number of different advertisements is assigned to said information carriers in addition to a triggering device issuing a standard message. The triggering device of the information carriers (7) can be switched over by means of sensors, each of which emits a signal that is characteristic of a specific transport vehicle.

Claims

1. A system for utilizing information carriers in commercially used facilities such as, for example, shopping centers, leisure facilities and the like, having a number of goods stores and possibly restaurants of similar supply structures reachable via corridors connecting them with each other and a number of more or less centrally arranged payment cashier stations and a sign-posting system using information boards and further a system of information carriers conveying textual, graphic and/or acoustic advertising or other messages, whereby the shoppers are offered carts or other transport means for transporting their purchases and/or other items at least within the commercially used facility

characterized in that

a number of information carriers is arranged over the floor space of the commercially used facility and said information carriers, to which, along with triggering for outputting a standard display, a device for triggering for outputting at least one, preferably a number of different advertising displays is associated and wherein the triggering of the information carriers can be switched by signal emitters, each of which emit a signal that is characteristic for a specific transport cart.

2. The system for utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein a switch-on time of selectable magnitude is assigned to the information carriers are generally present that can be switched on/off or triggered within the area of the commercially used facility.

3. A system for utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein each of the displays that can be switched on and off and deviating from a standard display of an information carrier relative to a specific signal transmitter can be activated or triggered once or according to special pre-programming several times or in multiple arrangement via said signal transmitter.

4. The system for utilizing signal carriers according to claim 1, wherein transmitting systems are provided in the area behind the exit or in front of the entrance of each facility, said transmitting systems resets the means emitting the encoded signals, in particular the interrogating transponder, so that each transponder represents its own new, discrete identity upon entering the facility.

5. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein means emitting coded signals, in particular a interrogating transponder, is arranged on the transport carts provided for the use of the shoppers in the commercially used facility, said means emitting a signal that is characteristic exactly for said cart and is associated preferably with triggering a display that deviates from a standard display.

6. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein all information carriers are equipped at least with a device suitable for querying the coded data of the individual transponders, in particular a transmitting/receiving system.

7. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein at least one counter device for acquisition and storing of the number of activation signals per unit of time is arranged downstream to the transmitting/receiving system,

8. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein in addition to a counter device, a time cycle device is arranged downstream of the transmitting/receiving systems, which upon identifying a static activation signal for a specific advertising message, whose repetition is limited to pre-defined intervals.

9. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein the information carriers are programmed with a standing advertising message, which autonomously switches on, if there is no activating signal for a triggerable advertising message.

10. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein each display deviating from a standard display of an information carrier is assigned a limited switch-on time.

11. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting/receiving system of each information carrier is associated with a device, which prevents that during a running time a triggered is not activated again by other signal emitters entering the transmitting area of the transmitting/receiving system.

12. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein the provision of the different advertising messages or displays on the individual information carriers is done by means of a wireless remote control system.

13. The system utilizing information carriers according to claim 1, wherein in a centrally organized system utilizing information carriers is associated with a central computer for supplying the individual information carriers with displays, in particular temporary displays.

14. The system utilizing information carriers according to one of claim 1, wherein in the case of a centrally organized system for utilizing information carriers the central computer manages the paid advertising time in such a fashion that each display is display for only so long as the advertising time is paid for and that all static data such as the frequency of triggering of the individual information carriers, the delimitation of the individual areas of the facility, the selection of the displays and in connection with antennas in the area of scanner cashier stations the association of the displays with sales of specific goods, are likewise processed in the central computer.

15. The system for utilizing information carriers according to one of claim 1, wherein in the case of a decentrally organized system for utilizing information carriers a mini-computer and a programmable memory for a number of different temporarily displayed displays and at least one further memory for collecting statistical data are associated with each of the information carriers, along with its transmitting/receiving system.

16. The system utilizing information carriers according to one of claim 1, wherein at least one superordinate management computer is associated with the computers associated with a more-or-less optional number of systems.