Multi-merchant loyalty point partnership

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11699166-B2
Application number	US-201816168477-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 23, 2018
Priority date	Oct 9, 2017
Publication date	Jul 11, 2023
Grant date	Jul 11, 2023

Abstract

A blockchain-based multi-merchant loyalty point partnership system may include a blockchain API host that receives a request to create a partnership smart contract for a multi-merchant loyalty point partnership. The request may specify various partnership parameters to include in the partnership smart contract. The blockchain API host may create the partnership smart contract and write the partnership smart contract to a blockchain. One or more qualified merchants may join the partnership smart contract to make the partnership active. In response to a customer completing a plurality of purchases that complete the partnership parameters of the partnership smart contract, the system may issue the customer a purchase reward which may include a loyalty point payout.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving, by a loyalty point network that comprises a host computing server and a loyalty portal service, from a first loyalty partner website a request to create a partnership smart contract, wherein the request comprises a purchase requirement parameter and a reward parameter, the host computing server providing an application programming interface (API) for a blockchain network, the loyalty portal service being in data communication with the host computing server;
transmitting, by the host computing server, a contract request to consensus participant devices for writing to the blockchain network, wherein the blockchain network comprises a plurality of computing devices that maintain a distributed ledger over a peer-to-peer network, wherein the contract request comprises the partnership smart contract;
transmitting, by the host computing server, a write confirmation to the first loyalty partner website, wherein the write confirmation indicates that the contract request was stored in the blockchain network;
receiving, by the loyalty portal service, a participant notification request from the first loyalty partner website, wherein the participant notification request comprises a partnership parameter of the partnership smart contract;
selecting, by the loyalty portal service, a second loyalty partner website in response to the participant notification request based at least in part on a type of purchase reward for a loyalty point account associated with the second loyalty partner website meeting the partnership parameter from the partnership smart contract, wherein the type of purchase reward is accessed from the loyalty portal service;
transmitting, by the loyalty portal service, a partnership notification to the second loyalty partner website, wherein the partnership notification comprises a blockchain uniform resource locator (URL) for locating the partnership smart contract in the blockchain network;
receiving, by the host computing server, a smart contract request from the second loyalty partner website, the smart contract request comprising the blockchain URL;
transmitting, by the host computing server, the partnership smart contract to the second loyalty partner website based at least in part on the blockchain URL being included in the smart contract request; and
executing, by the host computing server, the partnership smart contract to validate that a first transaction meets the purchase requirement parameter, the first transaction being received from the second loyalty partner website, wherein the execution of the partnership smart contract authorizes an adjustment of a balance for the loyalty point account of a customer in the blockchain network based at least in part on the reward parameter.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the host computing server, a respective request for an active partnership smart contract, wherein the respective request comprises loyalty partner data;
retrieving, by the host computing server, the active partnership smart contract by comparing at least one of the purchase requirement parameter or the reward parameter of the active partnership smart contract with the loyalty partner data; and
returning, by the host computing server, the active partnership smart contract to a respective one of a plurality of loyalty partner websites.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the host computing server, a partnership enrollment request for a respective one of a plurality of loyalty partner websites, wherein the partnership enrollment request comprises loyalty partner data and a partnership smart contract identifier; and
transmitting, by the host computing server, the partnership enrollment request to the consensus participant devices for writing to the blockchain network, wherein in response to receiving the partnership enrollment request the consensus participant devices achieve consensus on the partnership enrollment request.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting, by the host computing server, a first transaction record write to the consensus participant devices for writing to the blockchain network based at least in part on the execution of the partnership smart contract for the first transaction, wherein in response to receiving the first transaction record write the consensus participant devices achieve consensus on the first transaction record write.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
executing, by the host computing server, the partnership smart contract in response to being invoked by a third loyalty partner website, wherein the third loyalty partner website invokes the host computing server in response to completing a second transaction, and wherein in response to being executed the partnership smart contract records the second transaction; and
transmitting, by the host computing server, a second transaction record write to the consensus participant devices for writing to the blockchain network, wherein in response to receiving the second transaction record write the consensus participant devices achieve consensus on the second transaction record write.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein in response to being executed the partnership smart contract determines that the first transaction and the second transaction complete the purchase requirement parameter of the partnership smart contract.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein in response to a purchase reward of the partnership smart contract being a loyalty point payout the partnership smart contract instructs the host computing server to adjust the balance of the loyalty point account of the customer based at least in part on the loyalty point payout.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the loyalty portal service comprises a contract repository for storing a plurality of partnership smart contract templates, the partnership smart contract is generated based at least in part on one of the plurality of partnership smart contract templates, and the loyalty portal service is accessible via a user interface.

9. A loyalty point network, comprising:
a computing device; and
a tangible, non-transitory memory configured to communicate with the computing device, the tangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the computing device, cause the computing device to at least:
receive from a first loyalty partner website a request to create a partnership smart contract, wherein the request comprises a purchase requirement parameter and a reward parameter;
transmit a contract request to consensus participant devices for writing to a blockchain network, wherein the blockchain network comprises a plurality of computing devices that maintain a distributed ledger over a peer-to-peer network, the contract request comprises the partnership smart contract;
transmit a write confirmation to the first loyalty partner website, wherein the write confirmation indicates that the contract request was stored in the blockchain network;
receive a participant notification request from the first loyalty partner website, wherein the participant notification request comprises a partnership parameter of the partnership smart contract;
select a second loyalty partner website in response to the participant notification request based at least in part on a type of purchase reward for a loyalty point account associated with the second loyalty partner website meeting the partnership parameter from the partnership smart contract, wherein the type of purchase reward is accessed from a loyalty portal service;
transmit a partnership notification to the second loyalty partner website, wherein the partnersh

Assignees

• American Express Travel Related Services Co Inc

Inventors

• Chan Calvin
• Cracchiolo Christopher
• Ferenczi Andras
• Naik Harish R
• Baal Thomas Andrew Martin

Classifications

• G06Q30/0229 Primary

  Multi-merchant loyalty card systems · CPC title

• H04L9/50

  using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees · CPC title

• H04L9/3239

  involving non-keyed hash functions, e.g. modification detection codes [MDCs], MD5, SHA or RIPEMD · CPC title

• H04L9/3297

  involving time stamps, e.g. generation of time stamps · CPC title

• H04L9/0637

  Modes of operation, e.g. cipher block chaining [CBC], electronic codebook [ECB] or Galois/counter mode [GCM] · CPC title