CA1089989A - Coded coupon - Google Patents

Abstract

Abstract of the Disclosure A redeemable merchandising coupon entitling its holder to a specified discount on a particular consumer item has printed thereon a Universal Product Code (UPC) symbol scannable at a point of sale to determine the value of the coupon and the product and manufacturer to which the coupon relates. A second coded symbol, similar to the Uni-versal Product Code and containing additional information useful to the issuer of the coupon for evaluating the effectiveness of the coupon offer, is also printed on the coupon, and is scannable in conjunction with the Universal Product Code symbol at a clearing house or the like. The second coded symbol supplements the UPC symbol, and serves uniquely to identify each coupon, thereby permitting the coded coupons to be sorted automatically at the clearing house.

Description

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. BACKGROUND OF T~E INV~NTION
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A. Field of the Inven-tion .
This invention relates generally to merchandisiny coupons, and particularly, to a merchandising cou~on utiliæing a Universal Product Cod~ ~UPC) symbol scannable at a p~int of sale to determine the value and related product of the coupon and a second coded sy~bol ~isposed adjacen~ to the UPC symbol.
~he second codes symbol is scannable in conjunction with the Universal Product Code symbol at a clearing house or similar operation, and provides additional information to the issuer of the coupon for determining the effectiveness of the coupon offer.
B. escription of the Prior Art One of the problems associated with present dav re~ecmable merchandising coupons is the excessive amount of h~ndling required in the redemption process. Firstly~, the coupon must be manually redeemed at the point o~ sale by a retailer, who subsequently sorts the redeemed coupons and sends them to the manufacturer issuing the coupon or to a clearing ~0 house. I~hen the coupons are received by the clearing house, th~y axe manuall~ read and sortedr and the account o~ the retailer submitting the coupons is credited with the aggregate v~lue o~ the coupons together with an appropriate handling charge, while the various manu~acturers' accounts are debitecl.
In a~di~ion, a report is submitted to certain manu~acturers indicating the number and value o~ the coupons redeemed, the origin oE ~he red~emed coupons (i.e~, whether the~ origi-nated in a newspaper, magaæine or bo~ top), the regions in which the coupons were redeemed and other in~ormation.
The manual handling of the coupons requires a -1~ ~ ' ' ,. .
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considerable amount of time both at the point of sale and at the clearing house. At the pOiIlt or sale, the coupon must be visually inspected and a determination made as to whether the product called for by the coupon wa~ purchased.
The coupons must then be sorted and sent to the appropriate manufacturers or clearing houses. ~t the clearing house, the coupons are again ~isually inspected to determir.e if the~ are valid (eg., unexpired) and sorted according to o~Pers. ~fter the coupons have been sorted according to o~fers, the number of coupons relating to each offer are counted, and the appropriate reports are generated. In addition, the respective manuacturers' and retailers' a~count~ are debited and credited.
Typicall~, each manufacturer has a lar~e number 1~ oP oPEeræ outstandin~ relating to various products, and to various si~es and ~lavors of that product. In addition, difPerent offers are made by publishing coupons in various magazines, newspapers and other publications. When thi~ is done, the manufacturer usually desires to know the origin

2~ o~ each coupon in order to determine the e~ectiveness of his ~dYertising campai~n, so coupons relating to the same pro-duct which appear in diferent pu~lications axe typicall~
~re~ted under di~erent o~fers, each being identified by ~ di~E~xcn~ oex numbex. As a result, the number o~
2~ ~qpax~k~ oE~ers i9 ~Uit~ lar~e, thus re~uiring each coupon t~ b~ c~x~ully inspactecl an~ seyreyat~d according to oPf~r.
~7hi~ ultg ln a rather complicated segregation process that r~quir~s each cou~on to be handled twice , i . e ., first duriny an inspection process where the coupons are segregated according to oP~ers, and then during a counting process where the number :::

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of coupons relating to each offer are counted. Such a dupli-ca~ion of handling is quite time consuming and e~pensive.
For these and other reasons, systems have been developed for coding coupons so that they may be read auto-matically; however, such coding systems are directed eithertoward the clearing house operation, or to the point-of-sale operation. No system to date has been developed that is compatible with the Universal Product Code and usable at the point of sale, and which also contains all of the information required by a clearing house operation.
Typical prior art coded coupons are described in United States Patent Nos. 3,211,~70, 3,63~,995 and 3,959,624.
Th~ coupon~ disclosed in these patents provide a way auto-m~tic~lly ~o determine the value and related product of a u~4n, bu~ none of the coupons utili2es a codin~ system that is compa~ible with the Universal Product Code and readable by point-o~-sale apparatus, an~ which contains enou~h in~or-mation t~ be use~ul in a clearing house operation.
For example, the coded coupons described in Patent 2~ No~. 3,211,~7~ and 3,632,9~5 are desi~ned to be used in a ~lq~ri~ hou~e op~rntion, ancl include data relatin~ to the rqlatad ~roduct, size and pac~a~ing o~ the product, region of ~ xibu~ion, manu~acturer, premium value, price o~ the pro-d~ nd o~hex data~ Elo~ever, the codes incorporating such n ~rq r~ ivel~ compl~x and not readable by poin~-o~-sale 9~nnin~ q~ui~ment because thc codes employed are not com-p~ibl~ wi~h ~ha Universal Product Code. Furthermore, the d~ta ~elatlng to point-o~-sale operations is intermixed with data relating to clearing house operations and cannot con-3a veniently be separated out at the point of sale.

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The coupon described in United States Patent No.
3,95~,624 utilizes a Universal Product Code (UPC) sym~ol printed on the coupon, and is readable by point-of-sale scanning equipment. I~owever, the UPC symbol does not con-tain enough inormation to be usable in a clearing house oper-ation, and also, the product information in the UPC symbol pre~ent on the coupon appears to define only a single product, rather than to a family of products, and hence, such a coupon cannot automatically be redeemed for various si~es or flavors of a particular product, as is common coupon practice.
Summary of the Invention Aecordingly, it is an object of the present inven-~ion to provide a codin~ system for coupons that overcomes many o~ the disadvantages of the prior art svstems.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a coded coupon that is mechanically rea~able by point-of-sale apparatus and contains all of the information required by a clearing house operation.
It is still another objeet o the present invention ~0 to provide a coupon having two areas o~ coded information, one ar~a baing readable at the point of sale, and both areas being ~ readable in a elearing house operation.
It is yet another obje~t o~ the present invention pxo~id~ a coded coupon utilizing a Universal Produa~ Cocle ~$ ~UPC) s~mbol that is compatible with tlle Universal Product ; Cod~ (UPC~ ~ymbol used on the related products, and which c~nt~ins an auxiliary coded area containing information usable in a elearing house operation~
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bar coded coupon having point-of-sale and clearing house information encoded in t~o different bar coded areas, with both bar coded areas being readable by equipment at the clearing house, and only the information encoded in one bar coded area being readable b~ point-of-sale equipment.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a bar coded coupon that includes a family code thus permitting the coupon automatically to be redeemed for any one of a family of related products.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, first and second coded areas are provided on a merchandise coupon. The ~irst coded area is encoded with the Universal Product Code (UPC) and contains information xal~tin~ to the value of the coupon, the family of products ~or whioh the coupon may be redeemed, and the manufacturer oP the products. The second coded area is also encoded in a bar code ~ormat, and provides additional information necessary to a clearing house operation. This additional in~ormation permits each coupon to be uni~uely identi~ied, and contains items such as an offer number that identifies the promotion as~ociated with the coupon, thus permitting other ln~ormation, such a~ the periodical in which the coupon was prlnted, to be ascertained. If desixed, the bars ~ormln~ the sQcond coded area may be made visually distinct ~rom th~ UPC
~d~d bax~ in the ~irst ar~a 90 that the two areas may be a5 ~ily di~tin~uished by an operator. Only the UPC coded bars in ~he ~irst area, identi~yin~ the ~alue, manu~acturer and Pnm.~ly o~ product~, are read at the point of sale, while both o~ the areas are read at the clearing house.

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3~3~3'3 Description of the Drawin~s These and other ob jects and aavantages of the pre-sent invention will be readily apparent upon consideration of the following specification and attached drawings wherein:
FIG. 1 is a drawing of the face of a typical coupon coded in accordance with the system of the present inventi~n;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram o~ an automated point~
of-sale system usable with the coupon of the present inven-tion; and FIG. 3 is a bloc~ diagram of an automated clearing house re~din~ system usable with the coupon according to the pre~ant invention.
l)E~TAII.E:D DESCRIPTION OF THE PREF~RRED EMBODIMENT
1~ Re~errin~ now to the drawings, with particular ~t~ention ~o FIG. 1, there is shown a merchandising coupon generally designated by the numeral 10 utilizin~ the coding .
systam according to the present invention. The coupon 10 is similar to s~andard merchandising coupons, and contains 24 w~l~ten portions indicatlng the value o~ the coupon, the pro-d~ct or produ~ts ~or which tha coupon may ~e redeemed and ~c~em~ n restric~.ions, such as an expira~ion date, etc.
Thasd ~rl~tan portions are readable b~ a customer and are 81mil~r ~o t~e ~ritten portions o uncoded coupons pxesently ln u~.
In aacoxdance wi~ an impor~an~ aspect o~ ~he ~nv~nkion, thQ coupon 10 has ~wo coded areas 12 a~d 14 printed or otherwise disposed thereon. The area 12 is encoded in a Universal Product Code (UPC) format as dascribed in UPC
Guideline No. 22 published by Distribution Codes, Inc.

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; ~ , : -The Universal Product Code for coupons embodied in the area 12 is an eleven digit, all-numeric code. The first digit of the code identifies the item as a coupon, the next five digits identify the manufacturer, the following three di~its identify the family of products for which the coupon is redeemable and the last two digits indicate the value of the coupon. In the coupon illustrated in FIG. 1, the first digit is a 5 which indicates to the scanning equipment that a coupon, rather than a product, is being scanned. The next five numerals 12345 indicate the manufacturer, the following three digits 130, which are typically assigned by the manufacturer, indicate the product ~amily and the last two digits 07, indicate that the coupon is worth seven cents. This .inormation contained in the area 12 may be utiliæed by a point o~-sale scanner to determine whether a coupon has been validly redeemed, and to credit the customer with the face value of the coupon.
Although the information contained in the area 12 i5 use~ul for automated coupon processing at the point o~ sale, the information contained in the area 12 is not suf~icient to propare a report containing the in~ormation contained in the ~ep~xts presently being issued by coupon clearing houses.
For this reason, the supplementary coded area 14 has been printed on tha coupon adj~cent the area 12. ~he area 1~
a~n~ains th~ additional in~ormation required by the clearing house operation~
In the present embodiment, the area 1~ is encoded in a bar c~de ormat utilizing shorter bars than those employed in the area 12. The shorter bars permit the two areas to be visually distinguished so that a supermarket clerk will be sure to scan the area 12 and not be confused as to which ..

area contains the infor~ation required at the point of sale.
Thus, if the area 12 is scanned along a line that intersects at least the area 12 but not necessarily the area 14, such as along the line 16, all of the information required at the point o~ sale will be obtained even though the in~ormation con~ained in the area 1~ is not read. Also, since most scanners are rQsponsive to start and stop codes present in the Universal Product Code, the area 12 can also be scanned at the point of sale along a line that intersects both areas, such as the line 18, and the scanning apparatus will ignore the data present in the area 14.
The area 1~ need not be read since all of the in~orma~ion required by the point-o~-sale apparatus is con-t~in~d in ~he area 12. However, the clearing house scanning unit must scan the coupon along a line that intersects both o~ the areas 12 and 14, such as the line 18, and be responsive to both areas in order to read out the data present in the arca 14. Thus, all o~ the information necessar~ ~or a clearins hQuse opera~ion i5 obtained ~rom the cou~on 10 while maintaining ao th~ c~Up~n compatible with present point-o-sale scanners.
While the embodiment described in the ~oregoin~
utiliæes a palr o~ areas encoded with long and short bars to maXe the areas vi~ually distin~uishable, the areAs ~ay be m~da vls~lally distin~uishable in a variety o~ way~ such as ~5 by u~ in~ a bar code in one area and a target code in the ~th~ ~r~, by n~aking the bar~ in both areas the same length bu~ by placln~ the human readable alphanumeric characters balow tha bars in one area and abo~e the bars in the other area ~as is done in the presen~ embodiment), or by making tha second aroa invisible throu~h the use o~ phosphors, transparent ink or .. ,.. - ..

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like material that is invisible to the human eye, but which can be read by the clearing house scanning equipment.
Alternatively, if the areas are placed in close proximity to each other, no visual distinction need be provided since it would be possible to scan both areas at the point of sale without additional effort, and the information contained in the second area would be discarded.
To illustrate the utility of a coupon such as the coupon 10 illustrated in FIG. 1, a brief description explaining how such a coupon is handled at the point of sale and in a clearing house follows. A typical point-of-sale sanner, such as that sold under the trademark IBM 3660 and described in a manual entitled "IBM 3660 Supermarket System:
Introduction (GA 27-3076)", is illustrated in FIG. 2, but the functional blocks illustrated in FIG. 2 are common to other supermarket scanners, and it is intended that the coupon according to the present invention be usable with other supermarket scanners capable of decoding the Universal Product Code.
~4 In a typical system, a scanner 20, which may be a stationary scanner or a manually operated pencil shaped soanner, ~irst scans all of the products purchased by a cu5tomer and enters the codes printed on the products in a memoxy 22. The codes are then transerred ~rom the scanner ~0 to ~ha memory 22 through a terminal 24 which also has ~ provisions Eor manually enterin~ prices via a keyboard.
; An output of the terminal 24 is used to drive a printout and display system 26 that prints out and displays the identity and price of each product.
After all of the products purchased by the customer . .

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have been scanned, any coupons to be redeemed are also scanned along a line that intersects at least the area 12 such as the previously discussed lines 16 and 18 to retrieve the infor-mation stored in the area 12. The information contained in the area 12 is passed to a comparator 28 via the terminal 24.
The terminal 24 ca~ses the contents of the memor~ 22 to be applled to the comparator ~ 8 to determine whether a product corresponding to any one of the family of produc~s d~fined by the famil~ code present at positions 7 through 9 of the area 12 had been purchased. The family of products defined by each family code is stored in the memory. If any one of ~hese products has been purchased, the comparator indicates that the coupon has been validly redeemed, and causes the terminal 24 to print out and display the value o ~he coupon and the asso-ciated product on the printout and display 26. It should he noted that since the family code contained in positions 7 throucJh 9 represent an entire ~amily of products, such as various ~lavors of a particular product contained in various siæed packages, the code according to the present invention permits 2~ the coupon 10 to be redeemed upon the puxchase of any one o~
th~t ~amlly o~ products~ In the event that no product in the ~amily o~ products had been purchased, the comparator ~8 indicates to the terminal 24 that the redemption attempt is inv~lld, ancl ~h~ coupon i9 not r~deemed. ~rior art systems ~lmi~ tho redamption o~ a coupon to a sincJle product, since th~e sy~tems r~quire the Universal Product Code on the coupon e~act~ to match the Universal Product Code on the product.
0~ course, if the comparison ~eature is not desiredf the system can be modified merely to read the area 12 and to display the data contained therein.

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g A scanning system usable in clearing house opera-tions is illustrated in FIG. 3. Such a scanning system does not need a comparator similar to the comparator 28 used in the point-of-sale scanning system because the function of a clearing house operation is to read and identiy each coupon and to tabulate the numbers of each type of coupon redeemed.
No provision for determining whether the coupon had been properly redeemed at the point oP sale can or need be provided.
The function of the clearing house scanning system is only to retrieve information from the coupons so that client reports can be prepared and forwarded to the appropriate manufacturers.
The scanning system of ~IG. 3 employs a scanner 30 which may bc similar to the scanner 20. As in th~ case o ~hq scannex 2~, the scanner 30 may either he a stationary 1~ ~cann~x over or under which the coupon 10 is passed or a manually op~ratad pencil shaped scanner. In either case, the scanner 30 mus-t be passed over a scanning line such as the line 18 that cro~aes ~oth the area 12 and the area 14. The output signal Erom the scanner 30 is applied to a terminal and central ~0 proc~ssin~ unit ~CPU) 32 which controls a memory 34 and a p~int~-lt unit 3~. ~s the scannex 30 scans each coupon, the m~nu~c~ur~r and family o products is obtained by addressin~
~pp~opriate locations in the memory 3~ as indicated by the man~c~urax and amily codes conkained in the area 12. In lnn, ~ha oE~r nu~ber contained in ~he area 14 addresses A mem~xy lacAtion containin~ certain information desired by m~n~actur~ uch aa, but not limited to, the periodical ~nd la~ua in which the coupon appeared. As each coupon is thua scanned, data representative of the total number and total value of the coupons is accumulated and subsequently prin~ed out in tabular form by the printout 36 to provide a report indicating the number and value of each coupon, together with the product family information and the origin of each coupon. The repor~s are then sent to the appropriate manufacturers. Consequently, the coupon need be handled only once during the tabulating process, thus eliminating the duplication in handling present in a manual operation.
Obviously, many modifications and varia~ions o~
the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings. Thus, it is to be understood that, within the scope o~ the appended claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described above.

Claims (7)

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

1. A merchandise coupon adapted for scanning by an optical scanner comprising:
a sheet having printed thereon a first coded area automatically readable at the point of sale containing infor-mation necessary for coupon redemption, and a second coded area displaced from said first coded area containing addi-tional information usable in a clearing house operation.

2. A coupon as recited in claim 1 wherein said first and second coded areas are readily distinguishable from each other visually.

3. A coupon as recited in claim 2 wherein said first and second coded areas are encoded with a bar code format, the bars included in the first area being longer than the bars included in the second area.

4. A coupon as recited in claim 2 wherein said first and second coded areas each have human readable alpha-numeric characters associated therewith, the human readable alphanumeric characters associated with one of said areas being disposed below said area, and the human readable alpha-numeric characters associated with the other of said areas being disposed above said area, respectively.

5. A coupon as recited in claim 1 wherein said first coded area defines the value of the coupon, the family of products for which the coupon may be redeemed and the manufacturer of said products, and wherein said second coded area identifies the coupon.

6. A coupon adapted for scanning by an optical scanner comprising:
a first coded area encoded in a Universal Product Code format scannable by a point-of-sale scanner disposed thereon, and a second bar coded area smaller than said first bar coded area and disposed adjacent said first bar coded area, said first bar coded area being scannable at a point of sale when said coupon is scanned along a path intersecting at least said first area, both areas to be scannable at a coupon processing location when said coupon is scanned along a second path intersecting both of said first and second areas.

7. A coupon as recited in claim 4 wherein said first coded area defines the value of the coupon, the family of products for which the coupon may be redeemed and the manu-facturer of said products, and wherein the second coded area identifies a sales promotion relating to said coupon.