Foolproof coupon redemption system
First Claim
1. A coupon-redemption system for redeeming and validating coupons at a check-out counter of a supermarket, and the like, comprising, in combination:
- an electronic cash register for totaling purchased goods of a consumer;
an automatic coupon-reading device for automatically transporting a coupon and reading bar code on a coupon; and
means coupling said coupon-reading device to said cash register for transferring data therebetween.
8 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A manufacturers'"'"' coupon redemption system that is electronically controlled, and compatible in any supermarket using Universal Product Codes. The system includes a newly-styled, uniform coupon, with special bar code indicia redeemable on up to three families of products. At the supermarket, a special device for reading the coupons is provided that reads the coupons presented by the consumer. The system verifies that the consumer did, in fact, purchase the items specified, that the coupon has not expired, and other validation conditions. The unit communicates the results of the validation to the cash register for credit to the consumer'"'"'s bill. The accepted coupon is then mutiliated to prevent reuse. The reader devices, and the in-store controller, are under the jurisdiction of the coupon clearing house, thus enabling the clearing house to electronically poll the coupon redemption data by computer directly from the stores, and to immediately produce tallies and totals for the purpose of immediate billing of the manufacturers and crediting of the retailers.
69 Citations
37 Claims
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1. A coupon-redemption system for redeeming and validating coupons at a check-out counter of a supermarket, and the like, comprising, in combination:
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an electronic cash register for totaling purchased goods of a consumer; an automatic coupon-reading device for automatically transporting a coupon and reading bar code on a coupon; and means coupling said coupon-reading device to said cash register for transferring data therebetween. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A coupon-redemption system for redeeming and validating coupons at a check-out counter of a supermarket, and the like, comprising, in combination:
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an electronic cash register for totaling purchased goods of a consumer; an automatic coupon-reading device for automatically transporting a coupon therethrough and for reading bar code on a coupon; means coupling said automatic coupon-reading device to said cash register for transferring data therebetween; said means for transferring data comprising a programmable interface means for communicating with said coupon-reader and said cash register;
said cash register comprising means for placing said coupon-reader in a ready-mode where the reading of coupons thereby is set via said programmable interface at the initiation of a check out procedure. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A coupon-reading device for use in stores for automatically reading and transporting a discount coupon, comprising:
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a main housing having a coupon-entranceway by which a coupon is fed thereto; means for transporting a coupon from said coupon-entranceway to the interior of said main housing; bar-code reading means mounted interiorly in said housing for reading bar-code provided on a coupon; means for sensing the presence of a coupon at said coupon-entranceway for activating said means for transporting to transport a coupon into said interior of said main housing for the reading by said bar-code reading means; and control means for controlling the actuation and deactuation of said transport means and said bar-code reading means. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A method of automatically crediting discount-coupons at point-of-purchase, comprising the steps of:
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(a) tallying up the purchased items on an electric cash register; (b) feeding discount-coupons into an automatic coupon-reader for verifying and validating the coupons; (c) reading the bar-code data on the face of coupon; (d) verifying the correct bar-code format on the discount-coupon; (e) determining the validity of the discount-coupon for the particular tally from said (a), so that the discount-coupon matches with a product purchased during said step (a); and (f) automatically crediting the value of each validated coupon from said step (d) to the tally of said step (a) by the cash register; said step (b) comprises manually inserting a coupon to be read at the entrance of the coupon-reader, and, thereafter, automatically feeding the coupon into the coupon-reader for a preset period of time so that said step (c) may be performed, said step of automatically feeding comprising sensing the presence of a coupon at the entrance of the coupon-reader and, thereafter, transporting the coupon into the coupon-reader. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37)
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Specification