US 8,751,294 B2Granted

Processing value-ascertainable items

Assigneee2interactive, Inc.

InventorsAshmit Bhattacharya, Bruce Bower, Gary Briggs, Marc Gendron, Steve Grove, Tina Henson, Parker Thomas

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Abstract

Techniques are provided for allowing a merchant to process third party closed-loop instruments (such as gift cards) as if the closed-loop instruments were open-loop instruments. A customer provides card data of a third party gift card to a merchant, e.g., online or in a merchant store, for the purchase of one or more items provided by the merchant. The merchant sends the gift card data to an intermediary that deducts at least a portion of the balance of the gift card. The intermediary sends an offer for the gift card to the customer. If the customer accepts the offer, then the merchant applies the offer towards the total purchase price of the one or more items.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A method performed by one or more computing devices of a first party, comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

while owning, by the first party, a closed-loop stored-value instrument that has a positive current balance that has been issued by a particular merchant, wherein the particular merchant is different than the first party:
receiving at the one or more computing devices of the first party purchase data that indicates a particular amount that must be paid in order to purchase one or more items from the particular merchant;
providing by the one or more computing devices of the first party an offer message to be displayed to a user that initiated the purchase of the one or more items from the particular merchant, wherein the offer message includes an offer that indicates that the particular amount can be reduced if the user accepts the offer, wherein the offer is based on at least the positive current balance of the closed-loop stored-value instrument owned by the first party;
receiving at the one or more computing devices of the first party input that indicates that the user accepted the offer;
in response to receiving the input, providing by the one or more computing devices of the first party to the particular merchant an identifier of the closed-loop stored-value instrument as value for a first portion of the particular amount, wherein the first portion is based on the current balance of the closed-loop stored-value instrument;
and
receiving payment at the one or more computing devices of the first party from the user in exchange for the first party providing the particular merchant the identifier of the closed-loop stored-value;
and
wherein the first party provides a gift card exchange service.

6 more elements

One or more non-transitory machine-readable media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the performance of the method comprising:

a first party, while owning or representing an owner of, a closed-loop stored-value instrument that has a positive current balance issued by a particular merchant, wherein the particular merchant is different than the first party:
receiving at one or more computing devices of the first party purchase data that indicates a particular amount that must be paid in order to purchase one or more items from the particular merchant;
providing by the one or more computing devices of the first party an offer message to be displayed to a user that initiated the purchase of the one or more items from the particular merchant, wherein the offer message includes an offer that indicates that the particular amount can be reduced if the user accepts the offer, wherein the offer is based on the positive current balance of the closed-loop stored-value instrument owned by the first party;
receiving at the one or more computing devices of the first party input that indicates that the user accepted the offer;
in response to receiving the input, providing by the first party to by the one or more computing devices the particular merchant an identifier of the closed-loop stored-value instrument as value for a first portion of the particular amount, wherein the first portion is based on the current balance of the closed-loop stored-value instrument;
and
receiving payment at the one or more computing devices of the first party from the user in exchange for the first party providing the particular merchant the identifier of the closed-loop stored:
wherein the first party provides a gift card exchange service.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/467,997Filed 9 May 2012 · division
Priority: 4 Dec 2009
Published: US 2012/0221405 A130 Aug 2012
Granted: 10 Jun 2014
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

G06Q 20/12
Payment architectures: specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
G06Q 20/02
Payment architectures, schemes or protocols: involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
G06Q 20/204
Point-of-sale [POS] network systems: comprising interface for record bearing medium or carrier for electronic funds transfer or payment credit
G06Q 20/342
Using cards, e.g. integrated circuit [IC] cards or magnetic cards: cards defining paid or billed services or quantities

Family

Application61/266,910Us provisional application · filed 4 Dec 2009
Application12/903,987Parent of this division · filed 13 Oct 2010
US 2012/0221405 A1Pre-grant publication · published 30 Aug 2012
US 2011/0137740 A1Published application
US 8,751,294 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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