Information offering system for providing a lottery on a network
US6251016A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 31, 1997 |
| Grant date | Jun 26, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 31, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L63/0838
- WIPO fieldIT methods for management
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A lottery on a network like the Internet can be more easily attained by preventing impersonation and validating participation. In a preferred embodiment, the opportunity to participate in the lottery is a reward for viewing an advertisement. When the advertisement is viewed a lottery ticket issuing number is displayed as an image file on the browser of the user viewing the advertisement. The image file is sent from the server providing the lottery service to the browser with HTML source to display the number. The image file on the lottery server is deleted after being sent, so that if the user requests re-display of the ticket issuing number display, the number cannot be obtained. The lottery server maintains a database of date and time stamped. requests for lottery ticket issuing numbers to prevent multiple requests during a single session. The user is requested to input the number displayed by the browser to find out whether it is a winning number. The lottery server maintains a file with predetermined lucky times that are compared with the time that the user input the number. The first user to input a lottery number at a time that is at least as late as one of the lucky times is…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.