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AssigneeNone recorded
InventorsLuke A. Cuthbertson, Shane F. Morris, Nicholas C. Langmaid
Estimating the term…
A system and method for permitting purchases over a communication medium such as the Internet is provided. A payment identifier (19) is produced when a purchaser (7) makes a purchase from a merchant (3). This payment identifier (19) is generated by a payment establishment (17). The payment identifier (19) is communicated to the purchaser (7). The purchaser (17) then takes the payment identifier (19) to a payment establishment (17) to make an in-person payment. The payment identifier (19) does not have to display in human readable form the identify of the merchant (3) or the goods or services purchased. When in-person payment is made at the payment establishment, the merchant (3) is advised, and the purchased goods or services can then be delivered by the merchant (3). The system and method takes away the uncertainty associated with making payment on-line by providing credit card or like details over the communication medium. The payment establishment (17) can be a respected organisation with whom purchases can feel comfortable with in so far as disclosing their credit card or like details. Typically the payment establishment (17) can be a Post Office.
A system for permitting purchases over a communications medium, said system including,
A method to permit a merchant to know that payment for a purchase requested by a user over a communications medium has been made, said method including,
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
No related US applications are recorded in the indexed filing history.
Backward citations are indexed for grants only.
Commerce: billing or invoicing
Payment architectures, schemes or protocols: involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
Payment architectures, schemes or protocols: payment circuits
Payment architectures: specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
Term end not estimated
This invention relates a system and method for effecting payment over the Internet or like communication media. Throughout this specification the term Internet will be used but it should be understood that the term Internet is used to embrace electronic communication in general.
Hitherto there have been many proposals for purchasing goods or services over the Internet. Most merchants require a purchaser to provide credit card details or other financial institution details to make the payment. Whilst such is not mandatory as cash or cheque is always acceptable, the use of credit card or other electronic payment system facilitates the rapid processing of the purchase because payment can be made on-line at the time of purchase.
Purchasers, on the other hand, are suspect of providing the necessary credit card or other financial institution details over the Internet because of the possibility of fraudulent use. On one hand “hackers” may be able to intervene the communication and obtain the credit card or financial institution details. On the other hand, the merchant who receives the details may not hold those details secure. Further, purchasers in general are reluctant to divulge personal information such as credit card details and the like because of the desire to maintain personal privacy. For some purchases anonymity is required, and the purchasers do not wish third parties to know what has been purchased or the name of the entity who will provide those purchases to the purchaser. In general, commerce via the Internet has been partly thwarted because of the above problems.
In order that the invention can be more clearly ascertained examples of preferred embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:
FIG. 1 is an overview functional diagram of the system and method of one example,
FIG. 2 is a functional diagram showing a merchant registration process where a government instrumentality such as a post office acts as the payment establishment of one particular embodiment, and
Referring firstly to FIG. 1 it can be seen that there is provided a communications medium 1 in the form of an Internet system. Here, merchants 1, . . . N have computers 3 or other appropriate computer communication devices connected with a communication system such as the Internet system 5.
A plurality of purchasers 1, . . . N computers 7 also connect with the Internet 5. Each of the purchasers computers 7 include a processor unit 9, a monitor screen 11, a keyboard 13, a printer 15, and a pointing device 16 such as a mouse.
The merchant computers 3 and the purchasers computers 7 communicate through the Internet 5 by means of appropriate service connections through a suitable service provider. These have been omitted from FIG. 1 to aid clarity.