Beverage Dispensing and Tracking System
AssigneeiPourlt, Inc.
InventorBrett Michael Kaiakua Jones
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for managing beverage sales and inventory, and for enabling customers to pour their own beverages while preventing shrinkage is disclosed. The system enables a user to access a beverage from a beverage dispenser by presenting a beverage-pour tracking device. The beverage dispenser can prevent a user from accessing the beverage without the beverage-pour tracking device. Further, the system can confirm whether the user is permitted to access the beverage dispenser before enabling the user to access the dispenser.
Claims19
A method for tracking beverage pours, the method comprising:
- by one or more computer hardware components comprising one or more processors:
- accessing an identification associated with a customer of a first beverage provider;
- determining customer information about the customer based on the accessed identification;
- generating a unique customer identifier corresponding to the customer based on the accessed identification;
- associating the customer with a customer account at a site-specific beverage tracking system based at least in part on the unique customer identifier;
- associating the customer with a beverage-pour tracking device based on the unique customer identifier and a unique tracking device identifier associated with the beverage-pour tracking device, the beverage-pour tracking device storing information for identifying the customer account associated with the customer at the site-specific beverage tracking system;
- determining whether the beverage-pour tracking device is within a threshold distance from a first activator associated with a first beverage dispenser of a plurality of beverage dispensers, wherein each beverage dispenser of the plurality of beverage dispensers is associated with a separate activator;
- in response to determining that the beverage-pour tracking device is within the threshold distance from the first activator, identifying the customer based on the information stored on the beverage-pour tracking device;
- determining whether a measure of an amount of a first beverage available at the first beverage provider satisfies a minimum available beverage threshold;
- and
- in response to determining that the measure of the amount of the first beverage available satisfies the minimum available beverage threshold, activating the first beverage dispenser thereby enabling the customer to obtain access to the first beverage.
The method of claim 18, wherein the information further comprises at least one of:
- the identity of the type of beverage of the first beverage, information about where the first beverage was produced, trivia about the first beverage, quantity of the first beverage remaining, customer ratings for the first beverage, tips on how to best pour the first beverage, and a list of recommended foods to pair with the beverage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.