MOBILE RESTAURANT ORDERING SYSTEM

• US 20120209730A1
• Filed: 08/18/2011
• Published: 08/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tillster, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Tillster, Inc.
• Inventors: Garrett, James M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,109,026 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/15
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/12 Hotels or restaurants

Abstract

A mobile ordering system for a restaurant configured to request processing of an order made by a customer with a mobile device when the customer enters a predetermined geographic region associated with the restaurant as determined by a server configured to process global positioning satellite (“GPS”) data received from the mobile device. A user associated with the restaurant uses the mobile restaurant ordering system to define the predetermined geographic region. The server may be configured to dynamically alter the predefined geographic region associated with the restaurant based on certain factors associated with the restaurant, the order, and/or the customer.

Claims

1. A method for processing an order for a retail establishment, wherein a server is associated with the retail establishment, the method comprising the steps of:

providing at a user mobile device an application that includes a list of at least one item available for purchase from the retail establishment;

receiving at the server from the user mobile device a selection of the at least one item for purchase from the retail establishment;

establishing a geographic region based on a physical location of the retail establishment;

determining whether the user mobile device is within the geographic region based on data received from the user mobile device at the server representative of a location of the user mobile device; and

preparing the at least one item for presentation at the retail establishment when the user mobile device is within the geographic region.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining whether the user mobile device is within the geographic region comprises:

calculating a distance between the location of the user mobile device and the physical location of the retail establishment; and

comparing the distance between the location of the user mobile device and the physical location of the retail establishment to a predetermined distance.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of preparing the at least one item for presentation at the retail establishment when the user mobile device is within the geographic region comprises determining if the distance between the location of the user mobile device and the physical location of the retail establishment is less than the predetermined distance.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the geographic region has a circular outer boundary.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the geographic region has a non-circular outer boundary.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the non-circular outer boundary comprises a polygon.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of establishing the geographic region comprises drawing an area on a map using a maps service.

8. The method of claim 4 wherein the step of establishing the geographic region comprises providing data representative of the physical location of the retail establishment and a radius, wherein the circular boundary is defined by the physical location as a center of the circular boundary and the radius extending from the center.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of determining whether the user mobile device is within the geographic region comprises comparing a longitudinal value and a latitudinal value of the data transmitted by the user mobile device with a plurality of longitudinal values and a plurality of latitudinal values associated with the geographic region.

10. The method of claim 6 wherein each of a plurality of vertexes of the polygon is associated with global positioning satellite (“

GPS”

) coordinates.

11. The method of claims 10 wherein the step of determining whether the user mobile device is within the geographic region comprises comparing a set of GPS coordinates associated with the data transmitted by the user mobile device to the GPS coordinates associated with each of the plurality of vertexes of the polygon.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the step of comparing a set of GPS coordinates associated with the data transmitted by the user mobile device to the GPS coordinates associated with each of the plurality of vertexes of the polygon is accomplished by employing a point-in-polygon algorithm.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving GPS coordinates associated with the user mobile device.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving payment information from the user mobile device sufficient to effect payment for the at least one item.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising transmitting the payment information to a point-of-sale system associated with the retail establishment configured to process the payment information to effect payment for the at least one item.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the geographic region is a first geographic region, the method further comprising:

establishing a second geographic region associated with the retail establishment;

determining whether the user mobile device is within the second geographic region based on the data received at the server representative of the location of the user mobile device; and

directing the retail establishment to prepare the selection when the user mobile device is within the second geographic region.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the step of determining whether the user mobile device is within the second geographic region is performed if it is determined that the user mobile device is not within the first geographic region.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmitting a notification to the retail establishment that a customer associated with the user mobile device will be arriving at the retail establishment shortly when the user mobile device enters the geographic region.

19. A method for processing an order for a retail establishment, wherein a server is associated with the retail establishment, the method comprising the steps of:

providing to a mobile device a list of at least one item for purchase from the retail establishment;

receiving at the server from the user mobile device a selection of the at least one item for purchase from the retail establishment;

establishing a geographic region based on a physical location of the retail establishment;

determining whether the user mobile device is within the geographic region based on data received from the user mobile device at the server representative of a location of the user mobile device; and

in response to presence of the user mobile device within the geographic region, releasing from the server to the retail establishment the selection of the at least one item for purchase.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the step of providing a list of at least one item for purchase from the retail establishment is accomplished via an application provided to the user mobile device.