Method and System for Creating Rental Vehicle Reservations from Facsimile Communications
First Claim
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1. A system for creating a rental vehicle reservation from an electronic document communication, the system comprising:
- a reservation computer system that is configured to store and process rental vehicle reservations placed with a rental vehicle service provider;
an electronic document processing system in communication with the reservation computer system, the electronic document processing system being configured to receive an electronic document, the electronic document corresponding to a request by a purchaser to reserve a rental vehicle and including therein reservation data that defines the rental vehicle reservation, wherein the electronic document processing system is further configured to automatically extract the reservation data from the electronic document in a format that is readable by the reservation computer system and communicate the extracted reservation data to the reservation computer system to thereby book a rental vehicle reservation.
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Abstract
A system and method are disclosed for creating vehicle rental reservations from electronic communications. In an embodiment wherein the electronic communications comprise facsimile communications, optical character recognition (OCR) is employed to automatically extract the relevant data for a rental vehicle reservation from the received facsimiles. This automatically extracted reservation data can then be automatically loaded into the reservation computer system of a rental vehicle service provider to thereby book a rental vehicle reservation therewith.
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Citations
48 Claims
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1. A system for creating a rental vehicle reservation from an electronic document communication, the system comprising:
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a reservation computer system that is configured to store and process rental vehicle reservations placed with a rental vehicle service provider; an electronic document processing system in communication with the reservation computer system, the electronic document processing system being configured to receive an electronic document, the electronic document corresponding to a request by a purchaser to reserve a rental vehicle and including therein reservation data that defines the rental vehicle reservation, wherein the electronic document processing system is further configured to automatically extract the reservation data from the electronic document in a format that is readable by the reservation computer system and communicate the extracted reservation data to the reservation computer system to thereby book a rental vehicle reservation. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A computer-implemented method for creating rental vehicle reservations from electronic document communications, the method comprising:
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receiving an electronic document from a purchaser in an electronic format, the electronic document corresponding to a request for a rental vehicle reservation and including therein reservation data that defines the requested rental vehicle reservation; automatically processing the electronic document with computer software to extract the reservation data therefrom; and loading the extracted reservation data into a reservation computer system to thereby book a rental vehicle reservation with a rental vehicle service provider. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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40. A system for creating and managing a plurality of rental vehicle reservations, the system comprising:
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a computer network comprising a plurality of branch office computers, a first mainframe in communication with the plurality of branch office computers and configured to execute a fulfillment software program upon request by a branch office computer when a rental vehicle reservation is to be fulfilled, and a database in communication with the first mainframe for storing data regarding a plurality of rental vehicle reservations for fulfillment via the fulfillment software program; a second mainframe in communication with the computer network; a web portal in communication with the Internet and the second mainframe, the web portal being configured to interface a first authorized purchaser with the second mainframe via a plurality of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that are presented by the web portal for display within a web browser of an Internet-connected computer that is under operation of the first authorized purchaser, the plurality of GUIs being configured to accept as input thereto a series of commands from the first authorized purchaser for creating and managing rental vehicle reservations; and an electronic document processing system in communication with the second mainframe, the electronic document processing system being configured to accept as input thereto an electronic document from a second authorized purchaser, the electronic document corresponding to a request for a rental vehicle reservation and including reservation data therein, and wherein the electronic document processing system is further configured to automatically extract the reservation data from the electronic document and communicate the extracted reservation data to the second mainframe; and wherein the second mainframe is configured to execute a rental vehicle software program, the rental vehicle software program being configured to (1) create and manage a plurality of the reservations stored in the database in response to the input from the first authorized purchaser, and (2) create a reservation for storage in the database based on the extracted reservation data. - View Dependent Claims (41, 42, 43)
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44. A system for creating and managing a plurality of rental vehicle reservations, the system comprising:
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a computer network comprising a plurality of branch office computers, a first mainframe in communication with the plurality of branch office computers and configured to execute a fulfillment software program upon request by a branch office computer when a rental vehicle reservation is to be fulfilled, and a database in communication with the first mainframe for storing data regarding a plurality of rental vehicle reservations for fulfillment via the fulfillment software program; a second mainframe in communication with the computer network; a web portal in communication with the Internet and the second mainframe, the web portal being configured to interface a first authorized purchaser with the second mainframe via a plurality of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that are presented by the web portal for display within a web browser of an Internet-connected computer that is under operation of the first authorized purchaser, the plurality of GUIs being configured to accept as input thereto a series of commands from the first authorized purchaser for creating and managing rental vehicle reservations; and an electronic document processing system in communication with the computer network, the electronic document processing system being configured to accept as input thereto an electronic document from a second authorized purchaser, the electronic document corresponding to a request for a rental vehicle reservation and including reservation data therein, and wherein the electronic document processing system is further configured to automatically extract the reservation data from the electronic document and communicate the extracted reservation data to the computer network to thereby create a reservation that is stored in the database; and wherein the second mainframe is configured to execute a rental vehicle software program, the rental vehicle software program being configured to create and manage a plurality of the reservations stored in the database in response to the input from the first authorized purchaser. - View Dependent Claims (45, 46, 47, 48)
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Specification