Portable electronic device and loyalty point system

• US 6,409,080 B2
• Filed: 02/21/2001
• Issued: 06/25/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Kawagishi, Toshiyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Frech, Karl D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nowlin, April A.
• Application Number:
  US09/788,425
• Publication Number:
  US 20010025879A1
• Time in Patent Office: 489 Days
• Field of Search: 235/375, 235/379, 235/380, 705/14
• US Class Current: 235/375
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A portable electronic device, which executes a prescribed process based on a selling amount of money that is input from a terminal device, has a memory for storing information concerned with a loyalty point calculation process corresponding to a selling amount of money, calculates a loyalty point using information stored in the memory based on a selling amount of money which is input from the terminal device and updates a loyalty point stored in the memory to a calculated loyalty point.

Claims

1. A portable electronic device to execute a prescribed process according to information on a deal amount of money input from a terminal device comprising:

storage means for storing an application program for calculating loyalty points, and individual information of a person holding the portable electronic device, a qualification unit to add a special loyalty point based on the individual information, a size of a loyalty point added that corresponds to the qualification unit and a total loyalty point calculated by the application program;

means for calculating a first loyalty point using the application program stored in the storage means according to the information on the deal amount of money input from the terminal device, a second loyalty point using the application program stored in the storage means according to the corresponding qualification unit when the qualification unit is satisfied, and a total loyalty point by adding the second loyalty point with the first loyalty point; and

means for updating the loyalty point stored in the storage means to the total loyalty point calculated by the calculating means.

4. A portable electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising:

output means for outputting a loyalty point calculated by the calculating means to the terminal device.

5. A portable electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising:

output means for outputting the loyalty point calculated by the calculating means to the terminal device after updating the loyalty point stored in the storage means by the updating means.

6. A portable electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising:

means for executing an exchanging process of the loyalty point stored in the storage means based on the information stored in the storage means when an instruction for the exchanging process to exchange a loyalty point to another value is received from the terminal device; and

means for outputting the result of exchange by the execution means to the terminal device.

7. A portable electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising:

means for executing the loyalty point exchange process for the loyalty point stored in the storage means according the an application program stored in the storage means when an instruction is input from the terminal device for the exchange process to exchange the loyalty point to another valuable thing; and

means for executing the rewrite of an application program stored in the storage means according to an instruction from the terminal device when the exchange process by the execution means is completed.

8. A portable electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the storage means stores the information of a term of validity relative to the portable electronic device.

9. A portable electronic device according to claim 8, further comprising:

judging means for judging whether the term of validity of the portable electronic device has expired by comparing the date information input from the terminal device with the term of validity information stored in the storage means;

means for executing the loyalty point calculation process by the calculation means when the judging means judges that the term of validity is not yet expired and to execute the exchange process to exchange the loyalty point stored in the storage means to another valuable thing based on the information stored in the storage means when the judging means judges that the term of validity is expired; and

means for outputting the loyalty point calculated by the calculation means to the terminal device when the term of validity is judged to have not yet been expired by the judging means and to output the information showing that the term of validity has been expired together with the result of exchange by the execution means to the terminal device.

10. A portable electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the storage means stores the information on the term of validity of the portable electronic device.

11. A portable electronic device according to claim 10, further comprising:

judging means for judging whether the term of validity of the portable electronic device was expired by comparing the date information input from the terminal device with the term of validity information stored in the storage means;

means for executing the loyalty point calculation process by the calculation means when the judging mean judges that the term of validity has not yet been expired and execute the exchange process to exchange the loyalty point stored in the storage means to another valuable thing according to the application program stored in the storage means when the judging means judges that the term of validity was already expired;

means for outputting the loyalty point calculated by the calculation means to the terminal device when the judging means judges that the term of validity has not yet been expired and to output the information showing that the term of validity was already expired to the terminal device together with the result of exchange by the execution means;

means for executing the rewrite of the application program stored in the storage means according to the instruction from the terminal device after outputting the information showing the expiration of the term of validity by the output means when the judging means judges that the term of validity was already expired; and

control means for controlling the calculation means to execute the loyalty point calculation process according to the rewritten application program stored in the storage means after completing the rewriting process by the rewriting means.

2. A portable electronic device to execute a prescribed process according to information on a deal amount of money input from a terminal device, comprising:

storage means for storing an application program for calculating loyalty points, a qualification unit to add a special loyalty point in connection with date information, a size of a loyalty point added corresponding to the qualification unit and a total loyalty point calculated by the application program;

means for calculating a first loyalty point using the application program stored in the storage means according to the information on the deal amount of money input from the terminal device, a second loyalty point using the application program stored in the storage means according to the corresponding qualification unit when the date information input from the terminal device satisfies the qualification unit stored in the storage means and a total loyalty point by adding the second loyalty point with the first loyalty point; and

means for updating the loyalty point stored in the storage means to the total loyalty point calculated by the calculating means.

3. A portable electronic device to execute a prescribed process according to information on a dead amount of money input from a terminal device, comprising:

storage means for storing an application program for calculating loyalty points, individual information of customers who have a portable electronic device, a qualification unit for adding a special loyalty point associated with the individual information and date information, a size of loyalty point to be added especially corresponding to the qualification unit and a total loyalty point calculated by the application program;

means for calculating a first loyalty point using the application program stored in the storage means according to the information on the deal amount of money input from the terminal device, means for calculating a second loyalty point using the application program stored in the storage means according to the corresponding qualification unit when the qualification unit stored in the storage means in satisfied based on the date information input from the terminal device and the individual information stored in the storage means and a total loyalty point by adding the second loyalty point with the first loyalty point; and

means for updating the loyalty point stored in the storage means to the total loyalty point calculated by the calculating means.

12. A loyalty point system comprising a terminal device having an input means for inputting prescribed information and a portable electronic device to execute prescribed processes for the information input from the terminal device;

wherein,

the portable electronic device includes;

storage means for storing a prescribed application program for calculating loyalty points corresponding to a deal amount of money and loyalty points;

means for calculating a loyalty point based on the information on the deal amount of money input from the terminal device according to the application program stored in the storage means;

means for updating the loyalty point stored in the storage means to the loyalty point calculated by the calculation means; and

output means for outputting the loyalty point calculated by the calculating means to the terminal device;

the terminal device includes;

display means for displaying a loyalty point output from the portable electronic device;

application storage means for storing another application program separately from the application program stored in the portable electronic device; and

output means for outputting a rewriting instruction of the application program and another application program stored in the application storage means to the portable electronic device according to the instruction from the input means.

13. A loyalty point system according to claim 12, wherein the portable electronic device further includes:

means for executing the rewriting instruction to rewrite the application stored in the stored means to the application program output from the terminal device according to the rewriting instruction of the application program output from the terminal device.

14. A loyalty point system according to claim 12, wherein the terminal device further includes;

means or instructing an exchange process to exchange the loyalty point stored in the portable electronic device to another value;

the portable electronic device further includes;

means for executing the exchange process of the loyalty point stored in the storage means based on the application program stored in the storage means when the exchange process to exchange the loyalty point to another value is instructed from the terminal device; and

output means for outputting the result of exchange by the execution means to the terminal device.