BIDDING TO RECEIVE DATA AFTER A CONSUMER IS IN A ZONE

• US 20100274669A1
• Filed: 04/22/2009
• Published: 10/28/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Visa USA, Inc. (Visa, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Visa USA, Inc. (Visa, Inc.)
• Inventors: Carlson, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,543,468 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.580
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

An announcement distributor distributes, or auctions an opportunity to distribute, an announcement to an announcement recipient such as a consumer, issuer, merchant, or acquirer within a payment processing system. The announcement when there has been a satisfaction of an announcement condition, such as the consumer being determined to be located within a predetermined spatial zone. The content of the announcement may, in turn, facilitate a subsequent cashless transaction for resources of merchants. Implementations describe various permutations of the content of the announcement, the announcement condition, and the announcement recipient.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for electronically participating in an auction for an announcement including data about at least one consumer, the computer implemented method comprising the steps of:

bidding, using a computing apparatus executing software, to receive the announcement after at least one criterion of an announcement condition is satisfied including presence of the at least one consumer within a zone;

receiving, using the computing apparatus executing the software, notification that the bid to receive the announcement is a winning bid; and

receiving, using the computing apparatus executing the software, the announcement after the announcement condition is satisfied.

2. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1 further comprising the step of receiving, using the computing apparatus executing the software, an auction initiation communication indicating that the auction has begun.

3. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1 further comprising the step of forming, using the computing apparatus executing the software, a first transmission including information usable to:

determining a location of a first said consumer;

match the first said consumer with the at least one consumer; and

comparing the location of the first said consumer to the zone.

4. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 3 wherein:

the first said consumer is associated with an account that is issued by a corresponding issuer within a payment processing system;

a first said criterion is satisfied after the first said consumer is matched with the at least one consumer;

a second said criterion is satisfied after the location is matched with the zone; and

a third said criterion is satisfied after there is a match of at least one of;

an account characteristic of the account with a required account characteristic;

a transaction history of the account with a required tendency to purchase a specific type of resource; and

a demographic of the first said consumer with a required demographic, wherein the demographic is associated with the account within the payment processing system.

5. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 3 further comprising receiving, using the computing apparatus executing the software, a second transmission including data from a portable consumer device that is co-located with the first said consumer, wherein a portion of the received data is included in the first transmission.

6. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 5 wherein the portable consumer device is selected from the group consisting of:

a financial card;

a contactless device including a wireless processor, a transmitter, and a receiver;

a smart card;

a cellular telephone;

a personal digital assistant;

a digital audio player;

a global positioning system enabled device;

a computer; and

a combination of any of the above portable consumer devices.

7. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1 further comprising the step of using the computing apparatus executing the software to specify the at least one criterion that can be matched to the received data.

8. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1 wherein the auction is of a type selected from the group consisting of:

English auction;

Dutch auction;

sealed-bid first-price auction;

sealed-bid second-price auction;

supply auction;

demand auction;

double auction;

open auction;

closed auction;

buyout auction;

raffle; and

combinations of any of the above types of auctions.

9. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1 wherein:

each of the steps of the computer implemented method is performed by a merchant within a payment processing system that includes a transaction handler processing a plurality of transactions between the merchant and a plurality of said consumers that have each been issued a corresponding account by a corresponding issuer within the payment processing system;

the merchant submits a corresponding said transaction to a corresponding acquirer for processing by the transaction handler who requests the corresponding issuer to obtain payment for the corresponding said transaction from the corresponding account; and

the issuer forwards the obtained said payment to the corresponding acquirer to pay the merchant for the corresponding said transaction.

10. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1 wherein the at least one criterion includes electronically receiving a transaction occurring:

within a specified time interval;

with a merchant located in the zone; and

upon a payment account issued to the at least one consumer by an issuer within a payment processing system.

11. An apparatus comprising a computer readable medium including stored instructions that, when executed by a computing device, the computing device perform the steps of:

bidding for an option to receive data that is conducive to communicating with at least one consumer after at least one announcement condition occurs including presence of the at least one consumer within a spatial zone; and

after the announcement condition occurs and the bid is a winning bid, receiving the data conducive to communicating with at least one consumer located within the spatial zone.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the computer readable medium further comprises stored instructions that, when executed by the computing device, the computing device performs the step of forming a transmission including information received from a portable consumer device that is co-located with a first said consumer, wherein the information is usable to:

determining a location of the first said consumer;

match the first said consumer with the at least one consumer; and

comparing the location of the first said consumer to the spatial zone.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the information that is usable to determine the location of the first said consumer includes at least one of:

a merchant identification code associated with a merchant having a known location;

an altitude of the portable consumer device;

a latitude of the portable consumer device;

a longitude of the portable consumer device;

a World Geodetic System coordinates of the portable consumer device;

data usable to determine a direction of movement of the portable consumer device; and

data usable to determine a speed of the portable consumer device.

14. A computer implemented method for participating in an auction for an option to receive data that is conducive to communicating with at least one consumer when the consumer is located in a zone, the computer implemented method comprising the steps of:

forming, using a computing apparatus executing software, a first electronic transmission, addressed to an auctioneer of the option, including;

a merchant indicator usable to determine a merchant return address of a corresponding merchant; and

an announcement condition for forming a bid for the option including presence of the least one consumer within the zone;

when the announcement condition is satisfied, forming, using the computing apparatus executing the software, the bid for the option, wherein the bid is addressed to the auctioneer; and

when the bid is a winning bid, receiving at the return address, using the computing apparatus executing the software, the data that is conducive to communicating with the least one consumer within the zone.

15. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 14, further comprising the step of enabling, using the computing apparatus executing the software, a communication to a portable consumer device co-located with the least one consumer within the zone.

16. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 15 wherein the step of enabling the communication includes forming, using the computing apparatus executing the software, a transmission addressed to the portable consumer device and including a message from the corresponding merchant.

17. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 15 wherein the communication to the portable consumer device includes indicia of a discount that the consumer can receive when:

the consumer engages in a transaction upon an account issued to the consumer by an issuer within a payment processing system; and

the transaction is conducted at a point of interaction terminal of the corresponding merchant located in the zone.

18. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

receiving, using the computing apparatus executing the software, information from a portable consumer device that is co-located with a first said consumer; and

prior to the forming the bid, forming, using the computing apparatus executing the software, a transmission addressed to the auctioneer, wherein the transmission includes the merchant indicator and the information received from the portable consumer device.

19. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 14 wherein the announcement condition further includes a criterion that is selected from the group consisting of:

a window of time for receiving the data conducive to communicating with the at least one consumer;

an account category of an account of the at least one consumer issued to the at least one consumer by an issuer within a payment processing system;

a transaction history of the account indicating a tendency to purchase resources matching that of the corresponding merchant;

a demographic of the at least one consumer;

an occurrence of a transaction upon the account while the at least one consumer has been in the zone; and

a combination thereof.

20. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 14 further comprising the step of using the computing apparatus executing the software to repeat the step of forming the bid successively until at least one of the formed successive bids is the winning bid.