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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (4865)	5/10/2005 7:09:56 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 7936

Starbucks seeks to patent loyalty card By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco Published Thursday 14th April 2005 23:05 GMT Patent sleuth Theo DP writes, "Looks like Microsoft and Amazon may have some competition in the worst-Seattle-patent-ever contest." That's a tall latte, because when it comes to fatuous patents, Amazon.com and Microsoft have raised the bar very high. But he notes that this week two Starbucks patent applications seek to protect the electronic loyalty card. One, application (#20050077350), aims to cover a "dual card", a combined credit card and electronic loyalty card for Starbucks own stores, for example. A second application (#20050080672) by the same applicants seeks to protect the transactional system that exchanges data between the loyalty card and the credit card. Traditionally, the credit card cartel takes mandatory fees from vendors. With this patent, Starbucks looks to turn the tables on this arrangement... theregister.co.uk