U.S. patent application number 14/717564 was filed with the patent office on 2015-11-19 for non pre-approved channel filtering for card acquisition.
The applicant listed for this patent is III HOLDINGS 1, LLC. Invention is credited to Yanyan Guo, Atul K. Srivastava, Michael A. Vapenik.
Application Number | 20150332391 14/717564 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 39705781 |
Filed Date | 2015-11-19 |
United States Patent
Application |
20150332391 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Srivastava; Atul K. ; et
al. |
November 19, 2015 |
NON PRE-APPROVED CHANNEL FILTERING FOR CARD ACQUISITION
Abstract
Information can be shared across a pre-approved (PA) channel and
a non pre-approved (NPA) channel to reduce unnecessary offers of a
transactional instrument or transactional instrument upgrade to
prospects. All prospects listed in the NPA channel that have been
evaluated in the PA channel may be removed from a NPA offeree list.
This may be done by matching the NPA prospect list with a list of
prospects who have been evaluated in the PA channel. The list of
prospects evaluated in the PA channel may include, for example,
prospects who were pre-approved for an offer as well as prospects
who were considered for a pre-approved offer but who were denied
the offer. Prospects in the NPA channel that are removed from the
NPA offer list may be dropped from further NPA processing, as such
prospects are either unprofitable or do not meet a transactional
account company's standards for credit.
Inventors: |
Srivastava; Atul K.;
(Edison, NJ) ; Guo; Yanyan; (Flushing, NY)
; Vapenik; Michael A.; (Berkley Heights, NJ) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
III HOLDINGS 1, LLC |
WILMINGTON |
DE |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
39705781 |
Appl. No.: |
14/717564 |
Filed: |
May 20, 2015 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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14035184 |
Sep 24, 2013 |
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14717564 |
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13459782 |
Apr 30, 2012 |
8571929 |
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14035184 |
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11676135 |
Feb 16, 2007 |
8190470 |
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13459782 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/38 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/02 20130101;
G06Q 40/02 20130101; G06Q 30/0215 20130101; G06Q 20/10 20130101;
G06Q 40/025 20130101; G06Q 30/0251 20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 40/02 20060101
G06Q040/02 |
Claims
1-19. (canceled)
20. A method comprising: receiving, over an encrypted channel, by a
computer system, a marketable consumers list that includes
marketing information for a plurality of consumers; based on the
receiving, storing, by the computer system, the marketable
consumers list in a memory storage device associated with the
computer system; based on information indicating that a first
portion of the marketable consumers list meets a first criterion,
the computer system filtering the first portion from a remaining
portion of the marketable consumers list; subsequent to the
filtering, the computer system transmitting to a particular one of
the plurality of consumers included in the first portion of the
marketable consumers list a pre-approved offer for a financial
transaction instrument; subsequent to the transmitting, the
computer system receiving a request to approve a particular offer;
and based on request information indicating that the request was
issued in response to the pre-approved offer, the computer system
approving the request.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein the marketable consumers list
does not include any consumer that has a credit rating below a
predetermined threshold.
22. The method of claim 20, wherein the particular offer is a
credit offer.
23. The method of claim 20, further comprising: the computer system
using an interface to implement the encrypted channel such that the
encrypted channel corresponds to a cable communications protocol, a
wireless communications protocol, or a radio frequency
communications protocol.
24. The method of claim 20, wherein the first criterion includes a
threshold profitability requirement of an issuer of the financial
transaction instrument for a future profit predicted for using the
financial transaction instrument by a given consumer.
25. The method of claim 20, further comprising: prior to the
filtering, the computer system removing, from the marketable
consumers list, at least one of the plurality of consumers that
fails to meet a threshold credit qualification requirement.
26. The method of claim 20, further comprising: comparing, by the
computer system, the first portion of the marketable consumers list
to a list of consumers who are ineligible for pre-approved offers
for financial transaction instruments; and based on a result of the
comparing, determining, by the computer system, that the particular
one of the plurality of consumers is eligible for the pre-approved
offer for the financial transaction instrument.
27. The method of claim 20, further comprising: prior to the
receiving, the computer system transmitting to one or more
electronic devices a threshold credit score requirement, wherein
the computer system receives the marketable consumers list in
response to transmitting of the threshold credit score
requirement.
28. The method of claim 20, wherein the computer system includes a
communications interface that includes: a network interface, a
communications port, a Personal Computer Memory Card International
Association (PCMCIA) slot, or a PCMCIA card.
29. The method of claim 20, wherein approving the request further
comprises the computer system approving an upgrade of the financial
transaction instrument for the particular consumer.
30. A system comprising: a communications interface; a processor,
and a non-transitory memory configured to communicate with the
processor, the non-transitory memory having instructions stored
thereon that are executable by the processor to cause the system to
perform operations comprising: receiving, over an encrypted
channel, a marketable consumers list that includes marketing
information for a plurality of consumers; based on the receiving,
storing the marketable consumers list in a different non-transitory
memory that is included in the system; applying a filter to the
stored marketable consumers list, wherein the filter corresponds to
a threshold requirement; based on applying the filter, transmitting
to a particular one of the plurality of consumers a pre-approved
offer for a financial transaction instrument; and subsequent to the
transmitting, determining that the particular consumer has accepted
the pre-approved offer for the financial transaction
instrument.
31. The system of claim 30, wherein the operations further
comprise: based on applying the filter, dividing the marketable
consumers list into a first portion and a second portion; and
withholding, from consumers included in the second portion of the
marketable consumers list, the pre-approved offer for the financial
transaction instrument.
32. The system of claim 30, wherein the non-transitory memory
includes a removable storage unit.
33. The system of claim 30, wherein the operations further
comprise: based on applying the filter, dividing the marketable
consumers list into a first portion and a second portion; and
applying a different filter to the first portion, wherein the
different filter includes a requirement for a future profit
generated by a given consumer for an issuer of the financial
transaction instrument.
34. The system of claim 30, wherein the operations further
comprise: based on applying the filter, determining that a
particular portion of the marketable consumers list does not meet
the threshold requirement; and in response to the determining,
updating the marketable consumers list by removing the particular
portion such that an updated marketable consumers list includes the
particular consumer.
35. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer
readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are
executable by a computer system to cause the computer system to
perform operations comprising: receiving, over an encrypted
channel, a marketable consumers list that includes marketing
information for a plurality of consumers; based on the receiving,
storing the marketable consumers list in a data storage unit
included in the computer system; applying a filter to the stored
marketable consumers list, wherein the filter corresponds to a
threshold requirement; based on applying the filter, transmitting
to a particular one of the plurality of consumers a pre-approved
offer for a financial transaction instrument; and subsequent to the
transmitting, determining that the particular consumer has accepted
the pre-approved offer for the financial transaction
instrument.
36. The article of manufacture of claim 35, wherein the operations
further comprise: based on the determining, causing the financial
transaction instrument to be issued to the particular consumer,
wherein the financial transaction instrument issued includes at
least one of: a credit card, a charge card, a debit card, a
pre-paid card, or a stored-value card.
37. The article of manufacture of claim 35, wherein in applying the
filter, the operations further comprise: comparing a credit
eligibility of the particular consumer to a threshold credit
eligibility; and based on a result of the comparing indicating that
the credit eligibility does not correspond to the threshold credit
eligibility, using the marketable consumers list to generate a
pre-approved consumers list that includes the particular
consumer.
38. The article of manufacture of claim 35, wherein the operations
further comprise: prior to the receiving, transmitting to one or
more electronic devices a request to search for consumers that have
opted out of credit reporting; and in response to the request to
search, receiving a different marketable consumers list that
includes at least one consumer who has opted out of credit
reporting.
39. The article of manufacture of claim 35, wherein the operations
further comprise: matching a consumer name on a pre-approved list
with a consumer name on the marketable consumers list; and based on
the matching, determining that the particular consumer was not
previously denied the pre-approved offer for the financial
transaction instrument.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application is a continuation of and claims priority
to, and the benefit of U.S. Ser. No. 13/459,782 entitled "NON
PRE-APPROVED CHANNEL FILTERING FOR CARD ACQUISITION", filed on Apr.
30, 2012. The '782 application is a continuation of and claims
priority to, and the benefit of, U.S. Ser. No. 11/676,135 entitled
"NON PRE-APPROVED CHANNEL FILTERING FOR CARD ACQUISITION" filed on
Feb. 16, 2007, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,190,470 on May 29,
2012. Each of the aforementioned applications are incorporated by
reference herein in their entirety.
BACKGROUND
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] The present invention relates to providing an offer to a
consumer, and more particularly, to selecting a consumer to be
provided the offer.
[0004] 2. Background Art
[0005] Issuers in a transactional account industry acquire new
customers predominantly through two different channels: a
pre-approved (PA) channel and a non pre-approved (NPA) channel.
Traditionally, prospects solicited through the PA channel are
removed from the NPA channel. Treating these two groups separately
can reduce the marketing cost by reducing redundant, unintended
solicitations. That is, if the prospect has already received a PA
offer, there is no need to send the prospect a later, NPA offer.
However, even this technique can still result in a significant
number of unnecessary offers.
[0006] What is needed is a system and method for further reducing
the numbers of unnecessary transactional instrument offers to
prospects.
BRIEF SUMMARY
[0007] Information can be shared across a PA channel and a NPA
channel to reduce unnecessary offers to prospects. All prospects
listed in the NPA channel that have been evaluated in the PA
channel may be removed from a NPA offeree list. This may be done by
matching the NPA prospect list with a list of prospects who have
been evaluated in the PA channel. The list of prospects who have
been evaluated in the PA channel may include, for example,
prospects who were pre-approved for an offer as well as prospects
who were considered for a pre-approved offer but who were denied
the offer. Prospects in the NPA channel that are removed from the
NPA offer list may be dropped from further NPA processing, as such
prospects are either unprofitable or do not meet a transactional
account company's standards for credit.
[0008] Further embodiments, features, and advantages of the present
invention, as well as the structure and operation of the various
embodiments of the present invention, are described in detail below
with reference to the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS/FIGURES
[0009] The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and
form a part of the specification, illustrate the present invention
and, together with the description, further serve to explain the
principles of the invention and to enable a person skilled in the
pertinent art to make and use the invention.
[0010] FIG. 1 is a diagram of an exemplary method of and system for
generating a NPA contact list according to an embodiment of the
present invention.
[0011] FIG. 2 is a diagram of an exemplary method of and system for
generating a PA contact list according to an embodiment of the
present invention.
[0012] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary computer system
useful for implementing the present invention.
[0013] The present invention will be described with reference to
the accompanying drawings. The drawing in which an element first
appears is typically indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the
corresponding reference number.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
I. Overview
[0014] While specific configurations and arrangements are
discussed, it should be understood that this is done for
illustrative purposes only. A person skilled in the pertinent art
will recognize that other configurations and arrangements can be
used without departing from the spirit and scope of the present
invention. It will be apparent to a person skilled in the pertinent
art that this invention can also be employed in a variety of other
applications.
[0015] The terms "prospect," "consumer," "customer," and/or the
plural form of these terms may be used interchangeably throughout
herein to refer to those persons or entities capable of accessing,
using, being affected by and/or benefiting from the tool that the
present invention provides for generating a contact list for non
pre-approved offerees.
[0016] Furthermore, the terms "business" or "merchant" may be used
interchangeably with each other and shall mean any person, entity,
distributor system, software and/or hardware that is a provider,
broker and/or any other entity in the distribution chain of goods
or services. For example, a merchant may be a grocery store, a
retail store, a travel agency, a service provider, an on-line
merchant or the like.
1. Transaction Accounts and Instrument
[0017] A "transaction account" as used herein refers to an account
associated with an open account or a closed account system (as
described below). The transaction account may exist in a physical
or non-physical embodiment. For example, a transaction account may
be distributed in non-physical embodiments such as an account
number, frequent-flyer account, telephone calling account or the
like. Furthermore, a physical embodiment of a transaction account
may be distributed as a financial instrument.
[0018] A financial transaction instrument may be traditional
plastic transaction cards, titanium-containing, or other
metal-containing, transaction cards, clear and/or translucent
transaction cards, foldable or otherwise unconventionally-sized
transaction cards, radio-frequency enabled transaction cards, or
other types of transaction cards, such as credit, charge, debit,
pre-paid or stored-value cards, or any other like financial
transaction instrument. A financial transaction instrument may also
have electronic functionality provided by a network of electronic
circuitry that is printed or otherwise incorporated onto or within
the transaction instrument (and typically referred to as a "smart
card"), or be a fob having a transponder and an RFID reader.
2. Open Versus Closed Cards
[0019] "Open cards" are financial transaction cards that are
generally accepted at different merchants. Examples of open cards
include the American Express.RTM., Visa.RTM., MasterCard.RTM. and
Discover.RTM. cards, which may be used at many different retailers
and other businesses. In contrast, "closed cards" are financial
transaction cards that may be restricted to use in a particular
store, a particular chain of stores or a collection of affiliated
stores. One example of a closed card is a pre-paid gift card that
may only be purchased at, and only be accepted at, a clothing
retailer, such as The Gap.RTM. store.
3. Stored Value Cards
[0020] Stored value cards are forms of transaction instruments
associated with transaction accounts, wherein the stored value
cards provide cash equivalent value that may be used within an
existing payment/transaction infrastructure. Stored value cards are
frequently referred to as gift, pre-paid or cash cards, in that
money is deposited in the account associated with the card before
use of the card is allowed. For example, if a customer deposits ten
dollars of value into the account associated with the stored value
card, the card may only be used for payments together totaling no
more than ten dollars.
4. Use of Transaction Accounts
[0021] With regard to use of a transaction account, users may
communicate with merchants in person (e.g., at the box office),
telephonically, or electronically (e.g., from a user computer via
the Internet). During the interaction, the merchant may offer goods
and/or services to the user. The merchant may also offer the user
the option of paying for the goods and/or services using any number
of available transaction accounts. Furthermore, the transaction
accounts may be used by the merchant as a form of identification of
the user. The merchant may have a computing unit implemented in the
form of a computer-server, although other implementations are
possible.
[0022] In general, transaction accounts may be used for
transactions between the user and merchant through any suitable
communication means, such as, for example, a telephone network,
intranet, the global, public Internet, a point of interaction
device (e.g., a point of sale (POS) device, personal digital
assistant (PDA), mobile telephone, kiosk, etc.), online
communications, off-line communications, wireless communications,
and/or the like.
[0023] Persons skilled in the relevant arts will understand the
breadth of the terms used herein and that the exemplary
descriptions provided are not intended to be limiting of the
generally understood meanings attributed to the foregoing
terms.
[0024] It is noted that references in the specification to "one
embodiment", "an embodiment", "an example embodiment", etc.,
indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular
feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not
necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or
characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily
referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular
feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection
with an embodiment, it would be within the knowledge of one skilled
in the art to effect such feature, structure, or characteristic in
connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly
described.
II. NPA Filtering
[0025] Transactional account companies invite prospects to open a
new account with the transactional account company primarily
through two different channels: a pre-approved (PA) offer channel
and a non pre-approved (NPA) offer channel. A PA offer, as the term
is used herein, refers to an offer for a new transactional
instrument or an upgrade to an existing transactional instrument
that is sent to a prospect who has been evaluated according to at
least one criteria set out by the transactional account company.
Qualifications such as credit-worthiness and profitability (e.g.,
whether a prospect fails to pay their bills each month, whether the
prospect is revolving and carries over debt earning a transactional
account company interest, etc.) are considered when evaluating a
prospect in the PA channel. Because the PA prospect has already
been evaluated, a response to a PA offer is typically accepted by
the transactional account company.
[0026] A NPA offer, as the term is used herein, refers to an offer
for a new transactional instrument or an upgrade to an existing
transactional instrument that is sent to a prospect with little or
no evaluation of the prospect's credit history. Because the NPA
prospect has not yet been evaluated, there is no guarantee that a
response to the NPA offer will be approved.
[0027] Once a PA prospect has been contacted, the PA prospect may
be removed from a list of prospects in the NPA channel. This is
because the PA prospect has already been contacted with an offer
and it would be redundant to market a NPA offer to the PA prospect.
Redundant marketing increases costs of the transactional account
company, and may result in confusion and/or annoyance to the PA
prospect.
[0028] Prospects who are not approved (and thus denied) during the
PA process are typically not contacted with PA offers.
Traditionally, these prospects would be put back into the pool of
prospects who may be considered for a NPA offer. However, according
to an embodiment of the present invention, prospects who are not
approved during the PA process are also removed from the NPA
process. As the prospect has already been found to fail the
approval criteria used in the PA channel, it may be assumed that
the prospect would also fail the same or similar approval criteria
used to evaluate NPA applications, and that there is no need to
send an offer to such a prospect.
[0029] FIG. 1 is a diagram of an exemplary method of and system for
generating a contact list according to an embodiment of the present
invention. Information about potential prospects is obtained from
bureau credit base 102. Bureau credit base 102 may be, for example,
a database of individuals and/or businesses having credit bureau
history. Bureau credit base 102 may be maintained by, for example,
Experian Information Solutions of Costa Mesa, Calif. Prospects may
be added to bureau credit base 102 by, for example and without
limitation, opening a transactional account, applying for a loan,
etc.
[0030] At 104, individuals who have opted out of credit evaluations
under the Federal Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) are removed from
bureau credit base 102 to produce marketable consuners list 106.
Marketable consumers list 106 includes all individuals having
credit bureau history who have not opted-out of credit evaluations
under the FCRA. In a first embodiment, marketable consumers list
106 is provided to the transactional account company. In a second
embodiment, marketable consumers list 106 is provided to a third
party acting as a proxy for the transactional account company. The
third party may be a data collection company such as, for example,
Acxiom Corporation of Little Rock, Ark. Marketable consumers list
106 includes all prospects that have been processed through the PA
channel.
[0031] To further clarify, an exemplary method of and system for
processing prospects through the PA channel is illustrated in FIG.
2. A transactional account company 202 provides at least one
criteria to a credit bureau 204. In an embodiment, the criteria is
provided directly to credit bureau 204. In another embodiment, the
criteria is provided through a third party 206, such as Acxiom
Corporation.
[0032] Credit bureau 204 then filters through its database of
prospects who have not opted out of credit evaluations (such as
marketable consumers list 106 of FIG. 1) and returns a list of
eligible prospects 208 who meet the provided criteria. Such
criteria may include, for example and without limitation, a minimum
FICO (Fair Issac Corporation) score (produced by Fair Isaac
Corporation of Minneapolis, Minn.) or a minimum number of months
since the prospect filed for bankruptcy. Prospects who meet the
criteria and who are included in list of eligible prospects 208 may
be considered "credit qualified."
[0033] In an embodiment, transactional account company 202 or third
party 206 may accept list of eligible prospects 208 as the
prospects who should receive a PA offer. In another embodiment,
transactional account company 202 or third party 206 may perform an
additional filter on list of eligible prospects 208 to produce a
list of PA prospects 210. The additional filter may include, for
example and without limitation, whether the prospect is enough of a
revolver (e.g., the prospect carries over debt each month, earning
the transactional account company interest) to be profitable to
transactional account company 202. Although a prospect may be
"credit qualified," the prospect may also be considered
"unprofitable." Prospects determined to be unprofitable, for
example, are denied a PA offer and removed from list of PA
prospects 210. List of PA prospects 210 thus includes only those
prospects who qualify for a PA offer.
[0034] If the filter was performed by third party 206, list of PA
prospects 210 is provided to transactional account company 202.
[0035] Once transactional account company 202 has received list of
PA prospects 210, transactional account company 202 may market PA
offers to prospects on list of PA prospects 210.
[0036] As can be seen from FIG. 2, all prospects listed in
marketable consumers list 106 are evaluated during the PA process.
Some prospects may fail the initial filter as they are not
credit-worthy; other prospects may fail the second filter as they
are not profitable. These prospects are denied a PA offer.
Therefore, there is no reason to later send them a NPA offer, as an
application in response to such an offer would ultimately be
rejected for the same or a similar reason the prospect was denied
the PA offer. Additionally, making NPA offers to prospects who
received a PA offer is redundant.
[0037] For this reason, any prospect evaluated during the PA
process of FIG. 2 does not need to be reevaluated during the NPA
process of FIG. 1.
[0038] Returning to FIG. 1, at 108 the list of prospects in
marketable consumers list 106 is compared to (matched with) an
initial NPA offeree list 110. Initial NPA offeree list 110 is a
compilation of names, addresses, and/or other attributes from one
or more vendor lists 112. Vendor lists 112 are obtained from
various vendors and/or publicly available sources. For example,
vendor lists 112 may be obtained, in whole or in part, from the
InfoBase.RTM. database maintained by Acxiom Corporation.
InfoBase.RTM. is a database of United States consumer and telephone
data. One of skill in the art will recognize that other types of
databases from other sources may also be included in vendor lists
112 and used to populate initial NPA offeree list 110. Because
initial NPA offeree list 110 is not tied only to credit bureau
information, prospects in initial NPA offeree list 110 are not
necessarily included in bureau credit base 102 or marketable
consumers list 106. Initial NPA offeree list 110 may include
consumers who have credit bureau history, consumers who have no
credit bureau history, and consumners who have opted out of credit
bureau reporting under the FRCA. Initial NPA offeree list 110 may
be maintained in a database, for example, by the transactional
account company (such as transactional account company 202 of FIG.
2) or a third party (such as third party 206 of FIG. 2).
[0039] During comparing (matching) 108, prospects in initial NPA
offeree list 110 who are matched with prospects in marketable
consumers list 106 are flagged as PA validated prospects 114. PA
validated prospects 114 may be matched based on, for example and
without limitation, name and/or address. PA validated prospects 114
are removed from initial NPA offeree list 110, and no further
action is taken with respect to PA validated prospects 114.
[0040] The remainder of prospects in initial NPA offeree list 110,
who did not match prospects in marketable consumers list 106, are
placed in a final offeree list 116. Final offeree list 116
therefore includes, for example and without limitation, those
prospects who have opted out of credit evaluations by the credit
bureau under the FCRA, as well as those prospects who do not have
any credit history and were thus not identified by the credit
bureau. Prospects who do not have any credit history include, for
example and without limitation, individuals who have recently
turned 18 and individuals who have recently moved into the
country.
[0041] At 118, prospects in final offeree list 116 are processed
through a standard NPA process. A standard NPA process is well
known to those of skill in the pertinent art, and is thus not
further described herein. As a result of process 118, NPA
solicitations 120 are sent to the prospects included in final
offeree list 116.
[0042] In this manner as shown in FIG. 1, NPA offers may be sent
only to those individuals who were not previously evaluated by the
transactional account company for PA offers. This reduces redundant
and/or unnecessary offers that would otherwise result from sending
NPA offers to PA offerees, as well as from sending NPA offers to
non credit-worthy and/or non-profitable prospects.
III. Example Implementations
[0043] The embodiments as described in FIGS. 1 and 2, or any
part(s) or function(s) thereof, may be implemented using hardware,
software or a combination thereof and may be implemented in one or
more computer systems or other processing systems. However, the
manipulations performed by the present invention were often
referred to in terms, such as adding or comparing, which are
commonly associated with mental operations performed by a human
operator. No such capability of a human operator is necessary, or
desirable in most cases, in any of the operations described herein
which form part of the present invention. Rather, the operations
are machine operations. Useful machines for performing the
operation of the present invention include general purpose digital
computers or similar devices.
[0044] In fact, in one embodiment, the invention is directed toward
one or more computer systems capable of carrying out the
functionality described herein. An example of a computer system 300
is shown in FIG. 3.
[0045] The computer system 300 includes one or more processors,
such as processor 304. The processor 304 is connected to a
communication infrastructure 306 (e.g., a communications bus,
cross-over bar, or network). Various software embodiments are
described in terms of this exemplary computer system. After reading
this description, it will become apparent to a person skilled in
the relevant art(s) how to implement the invention using other
computer systems and/or architectures.
[0046] Computer system 300 can include a display interface 302 that
forwards graphics, text, and other data from the communication
infrastructure 306 (or from a frame buffer not shown) for display
on the display unit 330.
[0047] Computer system 300 also includes a main memory 308,
preferably random access memory (RAM), and may also include a
secondary memory 310. The secondary memory 310 may include, for
example, a hard disk drive 312 and/or a removable storage drive
314, representing a floppy disk drive, a magnetic tape drive, an
optical disk drive, etc. The removable storage drive 314 reads from
and/or writes to a removable storage unit 318 in a well known
manner. Removable storage unit 318 represents a floppy disk,
magnetic tape, optical disk, etc. which is read by and written to
by removable storage drive 314. As will be appreciated, the
removable storage unit 318 includes a computer usable storage
medium having stored therein computer software and/or data.
[0048] In alternative embodiments, secondary memory 310 may include
other similar devices for allowing computer programs or other
instructions to be loaded into computer system 300. Such devices
may include, for example, a removable storage unit 322 and an
interface 320. Examples of such may include a program cartridge and
cartridge interface (such as that found in video game devices), a
removable memory chip (such as an erasable programmable read only
memory (EPROM), or programmable read only memory (PROM)) and
associated socket, and other removable storage units 322 and
interfaces 320, which allow software and data to be transferred
from the removable storage unit 322 to computer system 300.
[0049] Computer system 300 may also include a communications
interface 324. Communications interface 324 allows software and
data to be transferred between computer system 300 and external
devices. Examples of communications interface 324 may include a
modem, a network interface (such as an Ethernet card), a
communications port, a Personal Computer Memory Card International
Association (PCMCIA) slot and card, etc. Software and data
transferred via communications interface 324 are in the form of
signals 328 which may be electronic, electromagnetic, optical or
other signals capable of being received by communications interface
324. These signals 328 are provided to communications interface 324
via a communications path (e.g., channel) 326. This channel 326
carries signals 328 and may be implemented using wire or cable,
fiber optics, a telephone line, a cellular link, a radio frequency
(RE) link and other communications channels.
[0050] In this document, the terms "computer program medium" and
"computer usable medium" are used to generally refer to media such
as removable storage drive 314 and a hard disk installed in hard
disk drive 312. These computer program products provide software to
computer system 300. The invention may be directed to such computer
program products.
[0051] Computer programs (also referred to as computer control
logic) are stored in main memory 308 and/or secondary memory 310.
Computer programs may also be received via communications interface
324. Such computer programs, when executed, enable the computer
system 300 to perform the features of the present invention, as
discussed herein. In particular, the computer programs, when
executed, enable the processor 304 to perform the features of the
present invention. Accordingly, such computer programs represent
controllers of the computer system 300.
[0052] In an embodiment where the invention is implemented using
software, the software may be stored in a computer program product
and loaded into computer system 300 using removable storage drive
314, hard drive 312 or communications interface 324. The control
logic (software), when executed by the processor 304, causes the
processor 304 to perform the functions of the invention as
described herein.
[0053] In another embodiment, the invention is implemented
primarily in hardware using, for example, hardware components such
as application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Implementation
of the hardware state machine so as to perform the functions
described herein will be apparent to persons skilled in the
relevant art(s).
[0054] In yet another embodiment, the invention is implemented
using a combination of both hardware and software.
IV. CONCLUSION
[0055] While various embodiments of the present invention have been
described above, it should be understood that they have been
presented by way of example, and not limitation. It will be
apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) that various
changes in form and detail can be made therein without departing
from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Thus, the
present invention should not be limited by any of the above
described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in
accordance with the following claims and their equivalents.
[0056] In addition, it should be understood that the figures and
screen shots illustrated in the attachments, which highlight the
functionality and advantages of the present invention, are
presented for example purposes only. The architecture of the
present invention is sufficiently flexible and configurable, such
that it may be utilized (and navigated) in ways other than that
shown in the accompanying figures.
[0057] Further, the purpose of the foregoing Abstract is to enable
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and
especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art
who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to
determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence
of the technical disclosure of the application. The Abstract is not
intended to be limiting as to the scope of the present invention in
any way.
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