The present invention relates to a shopping system utilizing digital broadcast or a digital broadcast shopping system.
Recently, BS broadcasts (television broadcasts utilizing a Japanese broadcasting satellite) and CS broadcasts (television broadcast utilizing a Japanese communications satellite) have been digitized. Now, digital television broadcasts (hereinafter, referred to as “digital broadcasts”) are moving toward widespread proliferation. The digital broadcasts are drawing attention in terms of enhanced image and sound qualities and also of shopping services available via data broadcasts.
In the digital broadcast shopping system, CMs (commercial messages) are transmitted via broadcast whereas data included in the CMs are recorded by a mass-storage device within a receiver. The shopping service is provided as follows. Data such as CMs sent via broadcast are decoded and displayed by a TV set or the like such that a receiver may do shopping as viewing the TV screen. When the receiver decides to purchase a product or requests for additional product information, the receiver may order the product or make such a request via a modem incorporated in a digital broadcast receiver.
Referring to
Where the receiver/product purchaser 1003 wants to purchase a product from the product distributor 1001, the receiver/product purchaser can acquire the product by paying a price for the product to a financial firm 1004. The financial firm 1004 transfers the received money to the product distributor 1001. At this time, the financial firm 1004 receives a collection commission from the product distributor 1001.
According to the above arrangement, the digital broadcast shopping service enables the product distributor to earn the money for the product, the financial firm to earn the collection commission and the broadcaster to earn the CM commission. However, although a manufacturer of the digital broadcast receiver contributes to the digital broadcast shopping system, the manufacturer does not receive a consideration for its contribution to the digital broadcast shopping system. The manufacturer of the receiver earns the price for the receiver when the receiver is sold. However, it is expected that the manufacturer will continue to make corporate efforts for the sake of development and production of the receiver. On the other hand, it is likely that the price for the manufactured receiver will decrease in future. As a result, the receiver manufacturer will be weakened in operational constitution. Finally, the receiver manufacturer may become unable to fully contribute to the development of the domestic industries.
A digital broadcast shopping system comprises:
The invention is directed to a solution to the aforementioned problem of the prior art and has an object to provide a digital broadcast shopping system which permits a party contributing to the digital broadcast shopping system to receive a consideration for its contribution. That is, the invention provides the digital broadcast shopping system which also permits a receiver manufacturer to receive a consideration for the contribution made by the receiver manufacturer to the digital broadcast shopping system.
Referring to the accompanying drawings, the digital broadcast shopping system according to an embodiment of the invention will be specifically described as below.
First, operations of the system will be described with reference to
Specifically, the digital broadcast shopping system includes: a digital broadcast receiver 103 operative to transmit purchaser-issued information to a receiver manufacturer-side processor 105 and a product distributor-side processor 101; a receiver manufacturer-side processor 105 operative to receive the purchaser-issued information and to transmit billing information on a receiver usage charge to the product distributor-side processor 101; and the product distributor-side processor 101 operative to receive the purchaser-issued information and the billing information on the receiver usage charge and to perform a payment procedure for making payment of the receiver usage charge. The product distributor 1 owns the product distributor-side processor 101 whereas the receiver manufacturer 5 owns the receiver manufacturer-side processor 105.
The digital broadcast receiver 103 generates the purchaser-issued information based on operations taken by the receiver/product purchaser 3 and then sends out the resultant information. The purchaser-issued information includes: information on a purchased product; information on a purchaser; information on a receiver manufacturer; information on a product distributor; and decision key information. The information on the purchased product includes at least either one of a product name and a product number of a product to be purchased. The information on the purchaser includes at least any one of a designated bank, purchaser's account number, a payment method and an information item as to whether payment has been made or not. The information on the receiver manufacturer includes at least any one of a name of a manufacturer of the digital broadcast receiver, a serial number of the receiver, an information item on purchaser's ID, and receiver-manufacturer's account number of a designated bank to which the receiver usage charge is to be transferred. The information on the product distributor includes at least either one of a name and an address of the product distributor. The decision key information includes at least any one of the information on the product distributor, purchase decision information, purchase cancellation information and information on request for product information and brochure. The purchaser-issued information may include records or history of the decision key information.
The financial firm 4 responds to money paid by the receiver/product purchaser 3 and makes payment to the product distributor 1. The product distributor 1, in turn, pays a collection commission to the financial firm 4. Based on the purchaser-issued information sent from the digital broadcast receiver 103, the receiver manufacturer 5 sends out a bill for the receiver usage charge to the product distributor 1. The product distributor 1 responds to the bill for the receiver usage charge by paying the receiver usage charge to the receiver manufacturer 5. There may be a case where the receiver usage charge is paid via the financial firm 4. Based on the purchaser-issued information, the product distributor 1 sends a product to the receiver/product purchaser 3.
It is noted that the purchaser-issued information is transmitted to the product distributor-side processor 101 and the receiver manufacturer-side processor 105 in accordance with a predetermined communication protocol.
It is noted that
Next,
Referring to
The product distributor-side processor 101 includes purchaser information extracting means 11, payment confirming means 14, receiver-manufacturer information extracting means 12, receiver manufacturer confirming means 13 and receiver-usage-charge payment means 15. The purchaser information extracting means 11 is operative to receive the purchaser-issued information from the digital broadcast receiver 103 and to extract purchaser information from the purchaser-issued information. The payment confirming means 14 acquires information from an output from the purchaser information extracting means 11, the acquired information indicating that the receiver/product purchaser 3 has made payment.
The receiver-manufacturer information extracting means 12 extracts, from the purchaser-issued information, at least any one of the name of the receiver manufacturer 5 which manufactured the digital broadcast receiver 103, a designated bank to which the usage charge for the receiver of the receiver manufacturer 5 is to be transferred, and information on manufacturer's bank account number. The receiver manufacturer confirming means 13 confirms as to whether a receiver manufacturer notified by the receiver manufacturer-side processor 105 which sent the bill for the receiver usage charge agrees with a receiver manufacturer extracted by the receiver manufacturer extracting means 12. The receiver-usage-charge payment means 15 performs a payment procedure based on the payment information sent from the payment confirming means 14 thereby to make payment of the receiver usage charge to the receiver manufacturer 5 confirmed by the receiver manufacturer confirming means 13. In the payment procedure for making payment of the receiver usage charge to the receiver manufacturer, it is also possible to transfer the receiver usage charge to the manufacturer's account number of the bank designated by the receiver manufacturer confirmed by the confirming means 13. In this manner, the receiver usage charge is paid to the receiver manufacturer 5 by means of the receiver-usage-charge payment means 15.
By the way, description is made on one exemplary mode of signals transmitted/received between the digital broadcast receiver 103, the product distributor-side processor 101, the receiver manufacturer-side processor 105 and the financial firm 4 shown in FIGS. 1 to 4. These signals include identification of a signal sender, identification of a signal receiver, a type of sent information, sent information per se, redundant information for error correction and the like. These information items are arranged in a predetermined order to form a data array. The data array is subjected to a predetermined modulation. The aforesaid purchaser-issued information is also represented by such a signal. The product-distributor information receiving means 51, the purchaser information extracting means 11 and the receiver-manufacturer information extracting means 12 monitor the identification of a signal sender, the identification of a signal receiver, the type of sent information, the sent information per se and the like so that the means may individually extract necessary information items. Each of the means performs each predetermined processing based on the extracted information.
The invention may be arranged such that the receiver usage charge for the digital broadcast receiver does not depend upon a unit price for a purchased product nor upon what part of a hardware of the receiver that is used. As a specific example, an arrangement may be made such as to claim a predetermined charge from the receiver/product purchaser 3 each time the receiver/product purchaser 3 requests for a brochure or each time the receiver/product purchaser 3 makes decision on purchase.
Alternatively, the invention may also be arranged such that the receiver usage charge depends upon the unit price for the purchased product or upon what part of the hardware of the receiver that is used.
According to the invention, a charge is incurred each time the purchaser manipulates the decision key 342 of the remote controller 34 to make any one of decision on purchase, cancellation of purchase and request for product information and brochure. It is noted here that the figure of the charge may be varied depending upon the cases of decision on purchase, cancellation of purchase and request for product information and brochure.
As described above, the embodiment of the invention permits the manufacturer of the digital broadcast receiver to charge and claim the product distributor for the receiver usage charge each time the product distributor receives information on decision on purchase, cancellation of purchase or request for product information and brochure via the digital broadcast shopping system. Thus, the manufacturer of the digital broadcast receiver can gain benefits corresponding to the contribution made by the manufacturer to the digital broadcast shopping system.
As described above, the invention can provide the digital broadcast shopping system which permits the party contributing to the digital broadcast shopping system to receive a consideration for its contribution. According to the invention, an excellent effect is afforded that the digital broadcast shopping system also permitting the receiver manufacturer to receive the consideration for its contribution to the digital broadcast shopping system is provided.
According to the invention, there is provided the digital broadcast shopping system which permits the party contributing to the digital broadcast shopping system to receive a consideration for its contribution. According to the invention, the receiver manufacturer can also receive the consideration for its contribution to the digital broadcast shopping system.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2002-277007 | Sep 2002 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/JP03/12000 | 9/19/2003 | WO |