US 5,969,316 A · Smart card for offline automated meal plans

Abstract

This invention involves the use of smart cards configured with data indicating a specific meal plan for use in the food vending industry. Examples of typical applications are student meal plans purchased in college or other school systems where the user purchases a plan allowing the user to eat specific meals or at specific times. Usually the meal plan is purchased at the beginning of the school term and terminates at the end of the school term. The invention uses a memory based smart card that is preconfigured on a specific date. The smart card contains data such as the meal plan type, the expiration date of the plan, the last transaction date, the user's weekly quota of meals, the number of meals a user can eat in a day, the user's daily quota and the operator identification. The smart card is configured by a computer at the start of the meal plan. Smart card readers are used to update data on the smart card and decrement existing data as the user purchases meals.

Claims19

Dependent claims

A food vending smart card system, comprising:

a smart card containing a data structure for storing a plurality of bytes corresponding to meal plan data and capable of being initialized by a point-of sale terminal coupled to a system administration computer;
the point-of-sale terminal having a periodic, noncontinuous connection to the system administration computer;
the point-of-sale terminal capable of reading data from the smart card and writing the meal plan data to the smart card to indicate purchase of a meal;
and
the point-of sale terminal capable of periodically refreshing the meal plan data by writing updated meal plan data from the point-of-sale terminal to the smart card.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Smart card for offline automated meal plans

Life of this patent

Smart card for offline automated meal plans

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims19