Patenting a Non-Monetary Point System

John was an inventor.

When John Jack left Maritz for BIW in the late 1970s, point systems had the same two features: first, monetary values were explicit (1 point equaled 1 dollar, for instance) and, second, all points were paid for at the time the reps redeemed them for prizes. He muddled through it for years, but was increasingly frustrated by the way incentive buyers treated the programs and how ineffective the programs had become.

By the early 1990’s, John reimagined the way his decoder ring experience might play out in the world of corporate sales incentives.

Over a half-dozen years, he tested several iterations that were mildly successful before he hit on a combination that stormed the market. Undeterred by the failures, John frequently reminded me, "Edison tested 10,000 filaments before coming up with the right combination of cotton and chemicals to make the light bulb last more than an hour." To create four of five products that weren't terribly successful was nothing in his mind.

AwardperQs were different from every other point system at the time. The company purchased the points for $25.00 each, but they could be redeemed for rewards that would be worth somewhere between $15.00 and $30.00. This variability served to take the reps' focus away from "is this a good deal" and put it on, "what is it that I want to get with my points?"

Of course, $25.00/point doesn’t work for every company in every situation so $2.50 and $0.25 versions were introduced to accommodate a greater variety of corporate budgets and circumstances.

Shortly after AwardperQs were introduced, John sought patent protection from the United States Commerce Department and got it. His invention, the combination of points that intentionally disguised the monetary value of the award, were pre-paid, and could be accumulated indefinitely by the recipients, met the Patent Office’s requirements of novelty, non-obviousness, and inherency. A trademark for a new product was common, but John made waves in the industry by receiving a rare patent[1] for an incentive reward system.

Over the nearly 20 years of the product’s lifespan, hundreds of millions of dollars of AwardperQs were issued and redeemed by millions of recipients in more than 40 countries. That’s a successful innovation.

Other Products

John was insatiable.

He favored the approach used by automobile manufacturers in the 1950s when it came to new products and marketing. Every year, the Chevrolet Coupe was redesigned with new features making last year's model slightly less desirable. John often challenged me when we talked about annual strategies: "Who wants to be driving a Chevy with last-year's fins when this year's fins are bigger and better?"

So, every year, new products or new enhancements were created – no matter what. I don’t remember the names of all the products John created, but I can assure you that every year brought something new to the market.

There are a few that stand out: Summit Collection™, Mileage Money™, Gainshare™, Q-bid®, AwardperQs® Gold and AwardperQs® Silver…there were certainly many more. Each one had great marketing materials, an excellent concept, and of course, clients. Every one of John's products had a client. And he always strived to have more.

It's interesting that more marketers aren't more focused on a regular program of enhancements and new products. Tech firms that build physical products are good at regular updates – less so today than they were 20 years ago – but software changes are rarely marked by radical changes in user experience. Instead, developers lean toward micro-improvements that are sometimes invisible to the user. Amazon has made 20,000 improvements to their website in the past 12 months, but customers would be hard-pressed to identify a single change.

John wanted to make sure the changes were vivid. By defining enhancements and new products vividly, John believed they'd be more meaningful. He was right. In the days of printed catalogs, he once scolded the art director and merchandise director, "We can't just bump up the catalog from 1,000 to 1,100 items. We need to go to 5,000 items! Now how do we do THAT?"

[1] USPTO Patent # US7249051B1: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7249051