Retail transaction promotion system

• US 6,401,074 B1
• Filed: 06/12/1998
• Issued: 06/04/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Lexmark International Technology, S.A. (Ninestar Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Access Company Limited
• Inventors: Sleeper, Dean A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hafiz, Tariq R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jeanty, Romain
• Application Number:
  US09/096,548
• Time in Patent Office: 1,453 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14, 705/26, 705/10, 705/16, 705/21, 235/383, 186/59
• US Class Current: 705/14.65
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/202 Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0268 at point-of-sale [POS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

An augmented point of sale system that displays, and that may broadcast, during a retail transaction, promotional information to a customer selected on the basis of the context of the transaction. An existing front-end POS system is augmented with an auxiliary display device intended for viewing by a customer while the customer interacts with the sales clerk in order to conduct a retail transaction. Software components are added to the point of sale system in order to generate messages corresponding to events that occur during the transaction and to, in turn, translate those events into display images displayed on the auxiliary display device. The auxiliary display device can display text, broadcast music or audio information, show video clips and other real-time dynamic media, and display static images.

Claims

1. A method for augmenting a point of sale system to provide multi-media promotional and informational displays to a customer during a retail transaction that are based on the context of the retail transaction, the method comprising:

augmenting a front-end point of sale system to include a multi-media display device for displaying promotional and informational displays to the customer;

including a messenger component within the front-end point of sale system to receive real-time notification of events detected by the front-end point of sale system during the course of a retail transaction, translate the events into messages, and make the messages available for processing by other components the point of sale system passing said events to the messenger component by passing the name of said events and data elements associated with said events and the messenger component transforming said events name and data elements according to a transformation map and packaging the transformed said events name and data elements into a self-describing data encapsulation object,

including a generator component within the point of sale system to process messages made available by the messenger component to produce descriptions of visual displays corresponding to the promotional and informational displays;

including a display component within the point of sale system that receives the descriptions of visual displays produced by the generator component and displays to the customer the corresponding promotional and informational displays on the multi-media display device; and

during the course of the retail transaction,

receiving notifications of events detected by the front-end point of sale system;

translating the events into messages;

producing descriptions of visual displays corresponding to the messages; and

displaying promotional and informational multi-media displays to the customer on the multi-media display device according to the descriptions of visual displays corresponding to messages representing the translation of events detected by the front-end point of sale system.

2. The method of claim 1 further including parsing messages by the generator component and running scripts by the generator component that specify production of the descriptions of visual displays.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the messenger component makes messages available to the generator component by passing the messages to a message queuing facility and wherein the generator component receives messages from the message queuing facility.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the display component includes a web server and a web browser, and wherein the descriptions of visual displays are hypertext markup language documents or dynamic hypertext markup language documents.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the promotional and informational messages may include various types of multi-media presentation objects, including video clips, still images, spoken text, printed text, and music.

6. An enhanced point of sale system that provides multi-media promotional and informational displays to a customer during a retail transaction that are based on the context of the retail transaction, the system including:

a front-end point of sale system that includes a multi-media display device for displaying promotional and informational displays to the customer;

a messenger component within the front-end point of sale system to receive real-time notification of events detected by the front-end point of sale system during the course of a retail transaction, translate the events into messages, and make the messages available for processing by other components the point of sale system passing said events to the messenger component by passing the name of said events and data elements associated with said events and the messenger component transforming said events name and data elements according to a transformation map and packaging the transformed said events name and data elements into a self-describing data encapsulation object,

a generator component within the point of sale system to process messages made available by the messenger component to produce descriptions of visual displays corresponding to the promotional and informational displays; and

a display component within the point of sale system that receives the descriptions of visual displays produced by the generator component and displays to the customer the corresponding promotional and informational displays on the multi-media display device.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the messenger component passes messages to the generator component via a message queuing facility.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the generator component executes scripts that are triggered by data values included in the messages, the scripts specifying various operations and tasks required to prepare the descriptions of visual displays, including running programs, accessing databases containing display objects to be included in the visual displays, invoking dynamic hypertext markup language engines for preparing dynamic hypertext markup language files, and invoking other scripts.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the display component includes a web server and a web browser for display of hypertext markup language files and dynamic hypertext markup language files.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein the display component includes a touch screen for receiving customer responses and indications and wherein the customer responses and indications are passed from the display component back to the generator component which then passes messages containing the responses and indications back to the messenger component, the messenger component then generating events corresponding to the responses and indications and passing those events to the front-end point of sale system.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the generator component tracks the display of different visual displays and reports the number of times certain visual displays are displayed via a network or telecommunications link to a remote computer.