Inventors:
Simon Gibbs - San Jose CA, US
Rick Rafey - Santa Clara CA, US
Jeffrey Dorn - Ridgewood NJ, US
Keiji Shiotani - North Bergen NJ, US
Linghan Cai - Fremont CA, US
Assignee:
Sony Corporation - Tokyo
Sony Electronics Inc. - Park Ridge NJ
International Classification:
G06Q 30/00
Abstract:
A system for issuing, redeeming and monitoring incentive offers generated in response to qualifying on-line and off-line non-purchase activities. For example, an electronic data card is used to store electronic coupons issued by web sites (i. e. , on-line) and/or off-line locations. In one embodiment activity registration is performed by programming integrated with, or coupled to, a web browser. Off-line activity is registered by a kiosk at a merchant location that generates an incentive offer, or a token which is later converted to an incentive offer, in response to conditions determined at the kiosk (e. g. , entered by the user, clerk, and so forth). A loyalty server operates to aggregate information about the offers for reporting purposes, and can be optionally required for determining qualification for an incentive offer, providing security codes for participating incentive issuers, providing qualification of offers prior to issuance, and validating stored offers prior to redemption.