Appeal No. 2004-0403
Application 09/100,684
BACKGROUND
The invention relates to a customer acquisition system,
which allows an entity to acquire new customers by making offers
to customers through billing statements of other entities.
Claim 1 is reproduced below.
1. A computerized customer acquisition method comprising
the steps of:
selecting a customer account record from an electronic
customer account database of a first entity, said customer
account record including a customer identifier;
determining if an individual indicated by said customer
identifier is a customer of a second entity;
sending a billing statement from the first entity to
said individual;
providing with the billing statement an offer to said
individual to pay at least a portion of an amount due on
said billing statement if said individual becomes a customer
of said second entity;
receiving acceptance of said offer from said
individual; and
acquiring the individual as a customer by transferring
said at least a portion of said amount to the first entity
by the second entity.
The examiner relies on the following references:
Jermyn 6,026,370 February 15, 2000
(filed August 28, 1997)
Crosskey et al. (Crosskey) 6,035,281 March 7, 2000
(filed June 16, 1997)
Linnen, Herb and McGann, Jim, AT&T comments on new FCC rules
to curb "slamming", AT&T News Release (June 14, 1995)
(Linnen).
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