Electronic payment method and system for carrying out the same
OwnerMichael Horn, Hans-Hermann Wolfinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electronic payment method for paying for merchandise or a service offered by a vendor and ordered by a purchaser over a data or telecommunication network using a prepaid electronic credit, essentially in real time, over the network, where a predetermined credit sum required for paying for the merchandise or service is transferred, in response to a transfer signal transmitted by a first terminal associated with the purchaser, to an electronic interim account belonging to the purchaser, in particular after intervening transfer by a debit signal, to an electronic target account belonging to the vendor.
Claims14
An electronic payment method for paying for merchandise or a service offered by a vendor and ordered by a purchaser over a data or telecommunication network using a prepaid electronic credit, essentially in real time, over the network, where a predetermined credit sum required for paying for the merchandise or service is transferred, in response to a transfer signal transmitted by a first terminal associated with the purchaser, to an electronic interim account belonging to the purchaser, in particular after intervening transfer by a debit signal, to an electronic target account belonging to the vendor.
The method as claimed in one of the preceding claims,
- characterized in that
- the target account is managed on an account management server in the data network, in particular on the same account management server as the interim account.
The payment method as claimed in one of the preceding claims,
- characterized in that
- the electronic interim account of the purchaser is provided within the context of the subscription to a shopping service, in particular with an operator of the account management server, where the purchaser is allocated an authentication code.
A data transmission arrangement for paying for merchandise or a service offered by a vendor and ordered by a purchaser over a data network using a prepaid electronic credit, essentially in real time, over the data network, which arrangement has:
- a credit memory, managed on a credit management server, for storing the prepaid electronic credit, an interim account memory on an account management server,
- a target account memory on the account management server or on a further account management server, a piece of credit transfer software implemented on an application server,
- a first terminal associated with the purchaser for entering credit and account identifiers and a payment initiation signal, and a data or telecommunication network connection between the first terminal, the credit management server, the account management server or account management servers and the application server in order to implement a data transfer process, implementing an electronic transfer, between these elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.