International Business Machines Corporation

Parul Alok Mittal

Natwar Modani

Alok Aggarwal

Rahul Garg

Aseem Agrawal

Vibha Singhal Sinha

Ravi Kothari

Anuradha Bhamidipaty

Vivek Jain

Manoj N Kumar

Manish Satyapal Gupta

Biplav Srivastava

Rajkishore Barik

Amit Anil Nanavati

Krishna Kummamuru

Pradeep Kumar Dubey

Vipul Bansal

Rajendra Sureka

Sreerama K Murthy

Satuloori Sridhar

Rema Ananthanaratanan

Atrayee Roychowdhury

A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for determining a combination of electronic coupons (e-coupons) for redemption by a retailer in a networked environment are disclosed. In the method, a check is made to determine if a selection of e-coupons complies with redeeming conditions for a purchase. If so, a further check is made to determine if two or more of the selected e-coupons are mutually exclusive. The selection of e-coupons complying with the redeeming conditions and being non-mutually exclusive is displayed. Preferably, the method includes suggesting to a user of an optimal or near optimal selection of e-coupons. The e-coupons may reside at a user's site, a third party's site, or a site of the retailer in the networked environment. The networked environment may be the Internet, an Intranet, an Extranet, a local area network, an ATM network, a wide area network and a wireless network.

Electronic coupons decision support and recommendation system

The present invention provides a method and system for enabling an e-commerce website to persist electronic items, such as electronic coupons, gift certificates etc., across multiple browsing sessions. Users are offered electronic items over a communications network during a browsing session. In case the user wishes to save the items for a later browsing session, he/she is prompted for an email address. Details pertaining to the selected items are mapped against the email address. Thereafter, e-mail is sent to the user, containing a URL with the email address of the user embedded in it. Alternatively, entire details corresponding to the items selected during a session are embedded in the URL and in this case they need not be mapped against the email address.

Method and system for enabling unregistered users to manage electronic items across sessions

The invention describes a method and system for conducting online marketing research keeping in consideration the specified budget for the experiment. The invention describes a methodology for effective data collection and optimised utilization of budget through the use of efficient sampling and grouping of users.

Method and system for conducting online marketing research in a controlled manner

A user interface component receives an input error message. A query enhancer component derives error messages from the input error messages using error pattern(s) representative of the input error message and error sub-pattern(s) of the error pattern(s). A result aggregator component inputs each error message to search engines, receives search results, aggregates the search results, and provides the search results to the user interface. The enhancer component may include a pattern composer component to locate error patterns representative of the input error message, and a sub-pattern generator component to derive error sub-patterns from the error patterns. The aggregator component may determine whether the search results are in agreement with a predetermined criterion. If not, the aggregator component may request the enhancer component to provide additional error messages to input to the search engines. This process can be iteratively repeated until the search results are in agreement with the predetermined criterion.

System and method for searching error messages

Selecting one or more marketing messages for optimal display at marketing locations in a marketing environment is performed on the basis of information relating to a user to whom the messages are to be displayed, the marketing messages, and the marketing locations. Dynamic selection and display of marketing messages in this manner can be advantageously performed for online environments for which relevant information is readily accessed and used as a basis for selection and display of marketing messages.

Targeted online marketing

An electronic coupon, an electronic commerce system, and a method for the honoring of electronic coupons utilizing computing equipment are disclosed. In the method, an issuing party issues an electronic coupon to a customer. The customer presents the coupon for redemption to a redemption party. The redemption party transmits the coupon to an authentication party for authentication. If authentic, the authentication party charges the redemption party a fee and passes that fee to the issuing party. The redemption party honors the coupon for the customer and seeking reimbursement of the fee from the issuing party. The electronic coupon has a plurality of data fields, including: a coupon identifier, x, a first one-way hash function field, f(x), and a secure signature field.

Honoring of electronic coupons

A method and system generates, distributes, stores, redeems, validates and clears electronic manufacturer coupons and electronic store coupons. A coupon mint generates unforgable blank digital coupons. The promoter of the offer then writes the terms and conditions and other details of the offer, on blank coupons to customize these. These customized coupons are digitally signed by the promoter and distributed to potential customers. A customer may either present these coupons electronically for redemption to an online store, or print these coupons and present them to a conventional offline store. The store may check the authenticity of a coupon by verifying the digital signature and also verifying if the coupon has not been used earlier by contacting a verification center. The store collects all redeemed coupons and sends these to manufacturer for clearing. The verification center verifies that the coupon is authentic and has not already been used before.

Generation, distribution, storage, redemption, validation and clearing of electronic coupons

An e-commerce mechanism tries to dynamically estimate or refine a profile of a buyer and hence change their negotiation strategy in a dynamic and an on-line manner. An e-commerce site can negotiate with a customer based on his or her profile. The e-commerce site may sell one or more types of items to various customers. These customers may be brokers, other intermediaries, businesses or consumers. Similarly, the e-commerce site may be a broker, an auctioneer, an intermediary, a seller, or even a manufacturer. In one specific case of this invention, the existing data on various customers' past purchases, buying behavior, demographics and other parameters is studied to arrive at attributes which are then used to segment customers into various profiles. The profiles depend not only on the demographic factors but also on factors like the season, the time of day, the geographical area and the cultural upbringing. When a new customer comes to the e-commerce site, the customer is assigned to a pre-specified profile in an on-line manner. The e-commerce site then negotiates with the customer according to the customer's present profile. As the customer negotiates, the customer's profile is dynamically updated to incorporate the customer's actions. Different profiles may yield different negotiation strategies and also different results, i.e., value, price, points, delivery dates, etc. Both the customer and the e-commerce site can negotiate on the basis of each other's dynamic profiles and come to a mutually agreed settlement.

On-line negotiations with dynamic profiling

The present invention provides a method and system for providing improved understandability of received speech characterized in that it includes input interface adapted to capture received speech signals connected to a speech recognition means for identifying the contents of the received speech connected to one input of a data processor adapted to perform improvement in understandability, a user profile storage connected to another input of said data processor for providing user specific improvement data, and an output generator connected to the output of said data processor to produce personalized output based on an individual's needs. The instant invention also provides a configured computer program product for carrying out the above method.

Personalized system for providing improved understandability of received speech

Internet services that rely on the transfer of real-time information have proliferated in recent years. Given the amount of information generated on the Internet, a user may request to be notified whenever particular information becomes available, such as the current highest bid in an on-line auction. The user enrols to receive one or more messages and sends a list of desired messages through a client process running on the user's computer system. When the user is ready to receive messages, the client process connects to a notification server and provides its receiving address identifier. It then disconnects from the notification server and waits for messages. A message monitor detects the occurrence of events that trigger notifications, and informs the notification server of the event. The notification server determines the appropriate recipient for the notification, and sends it using a server-initiated end-to-end message transfer mechanism to the clients' receiving address identifiers. The notification can also be used as a control signal to control one or more applications, or to control an appliance remotely over a network. The notification server may make use of load-sharing devices or proxy servers to distribute the notification to the client processes.

Event-triggered notification over a network

A methodology and system allows a plurality of reward scheme owners to give differential rewards, through a plurality of reward distribution agents, to various users based on the user profile. The reward scheme owner may be a seller, a manufacturer, a sales promotion agent or even an intermediary. Similarly, the reward distribution agent may be an on-line or a physical retailer, a broker, a seller or an intermediary. Also the users may be consumers, businesses, brokers or other intermediaries. In one specific case, a reward scheme owner defines a plurality of reward schemes, including at least one differential reward scheme giving different rewards to different users. The reward scheme owner communicates these to a central reward scheme database server. The reward scheme owners may or may not advertise these schemes. The user visits an online or a physical store. The store acting as a reward distribution agent dynamically profiles the user, queries the central reward scheme database server if the user profile meets the criterion for one or more rewards and offers the applicable rewards to the user. The store later receives reimbursement for the rewards offered to various users, from the reward scheme owners. This methodology and system may be used for offering targeted or differential discounts on different products and services, offering different promotional schemes on different combination of products, giving loyalty points, electronically distributing prizes, free samples, product warranties, tie-in promotions, cross selling, up selling, premiums, memberships, card discounts, organizing contests, sweepstakes, games and offering other similar rewards.

Differential rewards with dynamic user profiling

A system for implementing a virtual class and distance education via a computer network is disclosed. The process carried out by the system involves receiving signals from one or more instructor entities, the signals including lesson material designated as belonging to one or more interest groups. The lesson material is sent in advance to student entities listed in one or more of the interest groups to which the lesson material is designated as belonging. Signals from one or more student entities are received requesting admission to a particular class and instructions are sent to student entities to control the display and execution of the lesson material. Interaction amongst student entities, or between student entities and instructor entities, are facilitated and moderated.

Growing community of inventors

New Delhi, India

Parul Alok Mittal