|||||IIIHIIIHIIII US005256863A United States Patent (19) 11) Patent Number: 5,256,863 Ferguson Et Al
|||||IIIHIIIHIIII US005256863A United States Patent (19) 11) Patent Number: 5,256,863 Ferguson et al. 45) Date of Patent: Oct. 26, 1993 (54) IN-STORE UNIVERSAL CONTROL SYSTEM a card... any card please, Feb. 1990, vol. 52: No. 10; p. (75) Inventors: William L. Ferguson, Walnut Creek; 63. Mark H. Wallis, Long Beach, both of The Los Angeles Business Journal, Scissors No More: Calif. Vons Plans Scanner for Coupon Process, Jan. 1990, vol. 12; No. 5; Sec. 1; p. 1. 73) Assignee: Comark Technologies, Inc., Elk Supermarket News Information Access Co., Win Grove Village, Ill. n-Dixie to offer electronic coupons, Jun. 1990, vol. 40; 21 Appl. No.: 788,288 No. 24; p. 10. Device Specification For "Dot Matrix LCD Unit", 22 Filed: Nov. 5, 1991 Oct. 1986, pp. 1-17. 51 int. Cl......................... G06K 15/00; G07G 1/12 Primary Examiner-William L. Sikes 52 U.S. C. ..................................... 235/383; 364/405 Assistant Examiner-Toan Tran 58) Field of Search ................ 235/383; 364/401, 402, Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Fitch, Even, Tabin & 364/404, 405; 395/200 Flannery (56) References Cited U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS (57) ABSTRACT 4,236,604 12/1980 Warner ................................. 186/61 The present invention relates to a system for automating 4,554,446 11/1985 Murphy et al...................... 235/385 data acquisition and processing at a checkstand point 4,679, 154 7/1987 Blanford ............................. 364/S25 of-sale in a retail outlet. Preferred embodiments include 4,723,212 2/1988 Mindrum et al. ................... 235/385 a first local area network of POS terminals for initiating 4,773,001 9/1988 Blair et al.
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