Systems and methods for the selection and purchase of digital assets

• US 8,949,145 B2
• Filed: 07/05/2013
• Issued: 02/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: 2428392 Inc.
• Original Assignee: Trans World Entertainment Corporation
• Inventors: Harper, Gregory W., Sullivan, John J.
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TIEN C
• Application Number:
  US13/935,678
• Publication Number:
  US 20140074660A1
• Time in Patent Office: 578 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 705/35, 705/37, 705/38, 705/76, 707/791, 707/713, 706/47, 700/231, 715/513, 725/31, 709/223, 386/206
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/123 Shopping for digital content
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/18 involving self-service terminals [SST], vending machines, kiosks or multimedia terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/16 for devices exhibiting advertisements, announcements, pictures or the like

Abstract

The present invention provides systems and methods for enabling a customer to sample content and select content for purchasing while the customer is in a retail store. Advantageously, the customer may be given one or more options for the delivery of the content.

Claims

1. A transaction processing method, comprising:

generating an order confirmation code;

in response to a customer purchasing a product in a retail store, i) associating the order confirmation code with the purchased product and ii) providing to the customer a document comprising the order confirmation code;

a fulfillment system storing in a database the order confirmation code and a product identifier identifying the product such that the order confirmation code can be used to retrieve from the database a record comprising the product identifier;

after providing the document to the customer, receiving at a fulfillment system connected to a network a message transmitted by a communication device connected to the network, the message comprising the order confirmation code;

in response to receiving the message comprising the order confirmation code, extracting the order confirmation code from the message and using the order confirmation code to retrieve from the database the product identifier;

after retrieving the product identifier from the database, using the retrieved product identifier to retrieve from a storage unit data associated with the product identifier; and

after retrieving the data associated with the product identifier, transmitting via the network to the communication device the retrieved data, wherein the communication device is operable to receive the transmitted data and is configured to store in a storage unit within the communication device the received data.

2. The transaction processing method of claim 1, wherein providing to the customer the document comprising the order confirmation code consist of sending an electronic e-mail message comprising the order confirmation code.

3. The transaction processing method of claim 1, wherein prior to the fulfillment system storing the order confirmation code in the database the fulfillment system:

receives from a system within the retail store a message comprising the product identifier,

determines whether there exists data associated with the product identifier that is available to be transmitted to the customer, and

performs the storing step in response to determining that there exists data associated with the product identifier that is available to be transmitted to the customer.