Appeal 2007-0025 Page 11
Application 09/792,151
Rather than giving a discount at the point of sale, a rebate in the form
of electronic money is stored in chip card memory (Abstract);
(34) The communication network is preferably comprised of
one or more point-of-sale (POS) terminals which communicate with
the chip cards at the time of sale (col 7, lines 64-67);
(35) then the consumer subsequently uses the chip card to make
a purchase which used the rebate stored on the chip card at a "bricks-
and-mortar" retail location (col 8, lines 28-31);
(5) At the time of a transaction, e.g., a purchase, the Merchant
113 calculates the amount of purchase and asks the consumer 105 for
payment. The Merchant 113 inserts the chip card 114 into the POS
terminal 116 and communication is established between the chip card
114 and the terminal 116 via serial data channel 115. Referring to
FIGS. 4-6, the serial communication channel is accomplished by
electrical contacts 133 and communication signals 141 of the chip
card 114. The amount of the sale is either hand-entered or transmitted
by the cash register 148 (col 16, lines 6-16);
(9) During the time that these preceding transactions are taking
place to obtain authorization, the POS terminal 116 downloads the
chosen ASP to the chip card. A new Affinity record is created in the
Affinity data block on the chip card containing the VENDOR ID 143,
PRODUCT ID 144, PRODUCT TYPE 145, ASP VERSION 151,
PRODUCT COST 146, and LOADS UNTIL PURCHASE 147 fields
associated with that particular ASP. There may be more than one
version of the ASP for a particular product for reasons of targeting the
message to particular customer groups, therefore a data field is
provided, ASP VERSION 151, which indicates which ASP has been
downloaded. Additionally, the chip card's Affinity Records are
uploaded to the POS terminal 116 and compared to items currently
being purchased (col 17, lines 5-18);
(11) The POS terminal 116 will read the Incentive Record 163
of the Affinity Record of all ASPs stored on the chip card 114 to
determine which have rebates associated with products that are
currently being purchased. There may also be a list of pointers within
the Affinity Data Block 164 to all ASPs which have rebates in order
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Last modified: September 9, 2013