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Apparatus and method for electronically dispensing personalized greeting cards and gifts
| Details |
Inventors: Small, Maynard E.;
Assignee:
Primary Examiner: Trammell; James
Assistant Examiner:
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Litman, McMahon and Brown
A vending machine which allows a customer to design and personalize a greeting card also allows the customer to integrate an electronically vendable gift along with or directly onto the card. A stand-alone kiosk includes a credit card verifier, an alphanumeric keyboard, a video screen, a color printer printing on blank or partially printed card stock, and a gift calculator and vender, all controlled by a CPU. Examples of gifts available through the machine include chances at telephone games, such as SPELLIT, gift certificates, long distance toll free return telephone calls, lottery tickets, and, where sports gaming is legal, bets on the gift recipient's favorite sports team. Any or all of these gifts can be printed directly onto the personalized card. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention is an automated vending apparatus for simultaneously dispensing personalized greeting cards and electronically vendable gifts.
A stand-alone housing incorporates a video monitor, an input alphanumeric keyboard, a credit card reader, and/or cash receiving equipment.
A CPU within the housing controls each of these devices, along with a blank card stock feeder, a color printer, a credit verification modem, and a gift table memory and encoder.
The gift table memory and encoder can be programmed to encode gifts as chances in a telephone skill game, such as SPELLIT, described in the inventors's U.
S.
Pat.
No.
5,133,560, for example, or ADDITUP, a similar mathematics telephone skill game.
Alternatively, the gifts can be, for example, toll free calling time on a major long distance carrier to permit the recipient to call the sender.
Other gift possibilities include wagers on the recipient's favorite sports team (such as in Nevada where sports wagering is legal), gift certificates to department stores, etc.
, or even money in the form of money orders.
Virtually any gift which can be evidenced by an electronically generated personalized print-out can be generated and combined with, or printed directly on, a personalized card from the kiosk.
Objects and Advantages of the Invention The principle objects and advantages of the invention include: to provide an improved electronically controlled apparatus for generating personalized greeting cards and gifts; to provide such an apparatus in which the greeting cards can be created from a number of selected pictures and text, with additional text added by the customer; to provide such an apparatus in which an electronically generated gift can be purchased with the personalized card; to provide such an apparatus in which a CPU is connected to an alphanumeric keyboard and video display which permits the customer to view a representation of the personalized card prior to final printing; to provide such an apparatus in which a gift table memory and encoder is also connected to the CPU and the printer; to provide such an apparatus in which purchases can be made by cash or credit card; to provide such a method in which a personalized greeting card can be combined with an electronically generated gift in a single operation; and to provide such an apparatus and method which is particularly well adapted for its intended purpose
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Finance 
