Systems and methods for programmatically grouping consumers

US10628815B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• Groupon, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Geoffrey Hubert Woo · San Francisco, US
• Mahmudul Arefin Din · San Francisco, US
• Robert James Skillington · Melbourne, AU
• Michael Chen · San Francisco, US
• Tihomir Tsankov Georgiev · Menlo Park, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 24, 2014
• Grant date: Apr 21, 2020
• Expiry date: Feb 21, 2036

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04W40/244
• WIPO field: IT methods for management
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Systems, apparatus, methods, and non-transitory media for programmatically grouping consumers are discussed herein. Some embodiments may include a point-of-sale system including a merchant device and one or more communication beacons. The communication beacons may be placed at locations of interest and may be configured to broadcast different beacon identifiers. Nearby consumer devices that receive the beacon identifier may be determined to be associated with a point-of-sale order and suitable point-of-sale functionality may be provided. In some embodiments, a peer consumer device may be selected as an ad hoc communication beacon for broadcasting a beacon identifier to other consumer devices.