WO2006110032A1

WO2006110032A1 - Method to encourage purchase of products protected by copyright, trademarks and patents

Info

Publication number: WO2006110032A1
Application number: PCT/NL2006/000191
Authority: WO
Inventors: Moreo Romano Uden
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2005-04-13
Filing date: 2006-04-12
Publication date: 2006-10-19
Anticipated expiration: 2007-10-13
Also published as: NL1028763C2

Abstract

The invention concerns a method to discourage the trade, without permission, of products protected by patents, trademarks, copyright and the like, through identification of every protected product by its unique code and by coupling this unique code to a personal unique code of a buyer or renter as a destinator for a reward consisting for instance in a reduction of a product price, a lot of a lottery, or pricemoney.

Description

METHOD TO ENCOURAGE PURCHASE OF PRODUCTS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT , TRADEMARKS AND PATENTS

Desription: The invention concerns a method to discourage purchasing without permission, of products protected by patents, trademarks, copyright and the like, through identification of every protected not yet bearing a unique code, legal product, by adding to the production number and/or type number and/or serial number or the like of the product, a unique code, for instance containing identification details of the seller, date and/or time of the transactions and/or the paid price and/or the number of the receipt and register the product unique code, in a database, providing the possibility to check undefined products by comparison of codes in order to recognize the authenticity of the undefined product.

The identification of products as such, by comparison the code of an undefined product with the registered code from a database, is described in Peter J. Jungers American patent applications 0169671 of November 14, 2002 , 0131763 of June 16^th 2003, and the Canadian patent application 2 415 808.

Peter Jungers used the result of the comparison to find out if a returned product originated from his store or not. No suggestion has been made to prevent or discourage the sale of illegal products, nor is any measure taken to promote the sale of legally produced products but he only tests the liability of an undefined product to be serviced or to process a return transaction The method of the invention promotes the sale of legally produced , protected products by selling legally the protected products, thereby protecting the buyer and/or renter against claims from the holders of, for instance copyright, whereby the buyer and/or renter of a registered legal product, when for instance by first buying or renting a protected product obtains a personal code (comprising eventually characters and/or numbers, and/or signs) which code is registered in the database, and by coupling the personal unique code of the buyer and/or renter to the unique product code of the legal product and based on this combination code rewards the buyer and/or renter, while on the other hand, when the product appears to be fake, the sale organization of the fake product is easily to be traced by the authorities, who quickly and correctly can take the necessary steps to eliminate the illegal trade. Since the measures of the police and justice are time consuming due to the complex procedures and the load of paperwork to be done, while the legal procedure in court , and the lawyers and judges to be bothered, all together , are very costly as well, the method of the invention gives a quicker and better clue to the authorities to arrest the criminal infringer; the seller, trader, buyer, and even the criminal are this way discouraged in trading illegal goods.

The reward of the buyer and/or renter, including the importer, wholesaler, shopkeeper and the like can also be destined each time by coupling the buyers and/or renters unique code with the unique code of the product. Because the buyers and/or renters unique code is also repeatedly combined with another legal product unique code, the amount of transactions (sale and/or rent) in a period of time can easily be given in order to determine the reward to be given.

It's well known that counterfeit and imitations just as infringement of exclusive rights in particularly downloading and copying of image and/or sound from carriers such as tapes, disks and/or the like, games and also cheap copying of art or designs of fashion and the like damages the income of artist, designers, producers and honest trade.

The criminal infringer is only interested in making money by selling as many counterfeit products as possible for a low price, taking the risk of now and than a seizure by the police. further development of the method of invention gives the veiling of the code of the products which can be unveiled by a thereto programmed reader, which code can be put on a barcode element and/or chip in a secret and/or invisible place on the product or the package.

A refined method of the invention is reached by adding the reward procedure to a well known client binding system, whereby every client can be provided for instance with a unique saving card on which by each transaction in relation to the amount of the purchase saving points can be administrated and/or transported to a database to add to clients personal saving account.

This saving account can be used to purchase products or services.

For instance can the reward consist of adding extra bonus points when buying protected legal goods, products and/or services.

In particular is this method suitable for internet sales whereby the saving points, such as "Internet Credits" or "I-Credits" for instance with a norm value of € 0,10 a piece are added to the personal "I- Credit account". These I-Credits can be used for buying or renting at will, but can also be exchanged for money.

According to a further development of this inventive method, the buyer and/or renter can participate in a periodical organized lottery, whereby the unique personal code of the buyer and/or renter serves as a lot of the lottery, when in the passed period a protected legal product is bought or rented.

To prevent equal "unique" numbers/codes in different product types, a separate database can and/or shall be used for every product type or combination of a few types such as "sound and image carriers", games, movies, fashion, shoes, sports etc. These databases have to be controlled by strictly chosen specialist through password(s) and

/or other security services but the consulting of the data from these bases must be accessible to authorized officers. Logically the specialists mentioned shall not have a subaltern relation to producers, shopkeepers, client organizations, and/or the like.

To avoid hacking, and than filing or using unique codes or numbers of imitation and/or damage database(s), all databases concerned, should not be scattered over many easy reachable places but should be placed in a secure environment.

It is commonly known that massive interest for great public events, such as shows, theater, movie or stadium performances or sport games, draw criminals to produce fake tickets and sell these tickets to the public, creating a chaos. With the method to discourage the purchase of these illegal fake tickets whereby the buyer is rewarded for choosing the legal ticket, the danger of this chaos can thus be reduced. The reward can for instance exist in reduction of the ticket price or even a free ticket and/or winning (a) price(s)

Claims

Claims:

1.: Method to discourage purchasing, products protected by patents, trademarks, copyright or the like without permission, characterized by the registering of an unique code and/or number of a identified protected products in a database and through identifying every protected product not yet bearing an unique code, by adding to the production number and/or type number and/or serial number or the like of the product, a unique code (consisting of numbers and/or characters and/or signs), for instance containing identification details of the seller and/or date and/or time of the transactions and/or the paid price and/or the number of the receipt, and register these products with a unique code too, in a database, to check undefined products by comparison of codes of the undefined product with the ones filed in the database in order to recognize the authenticity or fake of the undefined product, and by registering a personal unique code(consisting of numbers and/or characters and/or signs) of a buyer and/or renter of a protected legal product in the database, which personal code of the buyer and/or renter can be obtained when first buying and/or renting a protected legal product, whereby the buyer and/or renter is rewarded when a protected legal product is bought and/or rented, which reward is destined by a prize code consisting of the coupling together of the unique code of the product with the personal unique code and/or number of the buyer;

2.: method according to claim 1 characterized by the placing of the unique code of the product on a barcode element or a chip, which code can be veiled and the code carrying chip or the like can be attached in an invisible place on the product or its package, while the code reader is programmed to unveil the attached code;

3.: method according to claim 1 or 2 characterized by rewarding the buyer and/or renter of a protected legal product, which buyer and/or renter, for instance carrying a card with the unique personal code, participates in a saving point system of a saving point registration organization, earning saving points (such as Internet Credits or I-Credits) in relation to the price of goods, products and services bought which point are added to an account held by the buyer and/or renter in a database of the registration organization, by doubling, tripling or quadrupling the number of saving points over the normal number of saving points in relation to the price of the protected legal product;

4.: method according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized by the participation of the buyer and/or renter in periodical organized lotteries, whereby the unique personal code of the buyer and/or renter serves as a lot of the lottery, when in the passed period a protected legal product has been bought and/or rented and also a lot can be given or gained;

5.: method according to one or more of the preceding claims characterized by creating a number of separate databases for different kinds of products, such as for sound and image carriers, games, fashion, shoes, etc., which databases in order to prevent hacking and filing unique codes for counterfeit products or damage the database, are together brought into a secure environment and served by carefully selected specialists using password and/or other security devices, while authorized interested persons should keep access to consult these databases;

6.: method according to one or more of the preceding claims characterized the rewarding of buyers of legal tickets for great public events in theaters, music halls, cinema's, stadiums and the like, by creating a unique personal code for instance chosen at random, combined with the number of the theater ticket, which unique personal number can be rewarded by a reduction of the fee of a next performance and/or participation in the lottery along with other prizes to win.