US 11,790,389 B1
Systems and methods for autonomous management of manufacturer coupons
Adam Robert Snopek, Chicago, IL (US); Renata Lurye, Glenview, IL (US); and Oliver Derza, Willowbrook, IL (US)
Assigned to WALGREEN CO., Deerfield, IL (US)
Filed by WALGREEN CO., Deerfield, IL (US)
Filed on Oct. 8, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/596,179.
Int. Cl. G06Q 30/00 (2023.01); G06F 16/951 (2019.01); G16H 20/10 (2018.01); G06Q 30/0226 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0238 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0207 (2023.01)
CPC G06Q 30/0232 (2013.01) [G06F 16/951 (2019.01); G06Q 30/0224 (2013.01); G06Q 30/0238 (2013.01); G16H 20/10 (2018.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
6. A computer-implemented method for automatically identifying and obtaining one or more coupons comprising:
automatically accessing, at predetermined time intervals via an available coupon bot, one or more third-party servers to identify one or more available coupons;
determining, via the available coupon bot, one or more products for which the one or more available coupons are applicable toward purchasing the one or more products;
storing, via an available coupon database, characteristic product identifier data corresponding to the one or more products for which the one or more coupons are available, the stored data comprising one or more personal eligibility criteria for each of the one or more coupons;
receiving, via a central processing system, a request to purchase the one or more products for a person;
determining, via the central processing system, that the person is eligible for the one or more coupons, based upon a comparison of the one or more personal eligibility criteria to stored personal information regarding the person;
upon determining that the person is eligible for the one or more coupons, transmitting, via a coupon retrieval bot, in response to receiving the request to purchase, a request for the third-party server to generate and provide the one or more available coupons as a portable document format (PDF) file or webpage representing the one or more available coupons;
via the coupon retrieval bot, downloading the generated PDF or webpage from the third-party server;
via the coupon retrieval bot, extracting relevant coupon data for the one or more available coupons from the downloaded PDF or webpage at least by (1) identifying an electronic file format of the downloaded PDF or webpage, (2) standardizing or resizing the downloaded PDF or webpage based upon a pixel width of the downloaded PDF or webpage, (3) determining a location of a bounding box containing the relevant coupon data within the standardized or resized PDF or webpage, and (4) applying an optical character recognition technique within the determined bounding box to identify text corresponding to the relevant coupon data;
storing, via a retrieved coupon database, the relevant coupon data corresponding to the one or more available coupons; and
applying, via one or more processors of the central processing system, the one or more available coupons toward the purchase of the one or more products using the extracted relevant coupon data.