Internet billing method
AssigneeAT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
InventorANDREW EGENDORF
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, identifying a consumer account managed by a service provider to which purchases are chargeable, the identification of the account based on transactional information, enabling customer equipment to request a purchase of an electronically-purchasable item of a vendor via network equipment of the service provider, wherein the vendor is a party other than the service provider, charging the consumer account a fee for a purchase initiated by the customer equipment, and remitting a portion of the fee to an account of the vendor. Other embodiments are disclosed.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- receiving customer account information for establishing an account to which purchases are chargeable to the account by a service provider, the account being maintained by the service provider and the customer account information being received by network equipment of the service provider;
- enabling customer equipment to initiate purchase of an electronically-purchasable product of a vendor via a connection to the network equipment of the service provider;
- detecting a purchase initiated by the customer equipment;
- charging the account a fee for the purchase, the fee being charged in response to a communication from vendor equipment of the vendor received by the network equipment of the service provider, wherein the vendor is a party other than the service provider;
- and
- initiating delivery of the electronically-purchasable product.
The method of 1, comprising enabling the customer equipment to communicate with the vendor equipment by way of the network equipment.
A method comprising:
- receiving customer account information for establishing an account to which purchases are chargeable to the account by a third party, the account being maintained by the third party and the customer account information being received by network equipment of the third party;
- enabling customer equipment to initiate purchase of an electronically-purchasable product of a vendor via a connection to the network equipment of the third party;
- detecting a purchase initiated by the customer equipment;
- and
- charging the account a fee for the purchase, the fee being charged in response to a communication from vendor equipment of the vendor received by the network equipment of the third party, wherein the vendor is a party other than the third party.
A method comprising:
- receiving customer account information for establishing an account to which purchases are chargeable to the account by a third party, the account being maintained by the third party and the customer account information being received by network equipment of the third party;
- enabling customer equipment to initiate purchase of an electronically-purchasable product of a vendor via a connection to the network equipment of the third party, wherein the vendor is a party other than the third party;
- detecting a purchase initiated by the customer equipment;
- charging the account a fee for the purchase;
- and
- initiating between the third party and the vendor a remittance of a portion of the fee.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.