Automated order and payment system

Abstract

An automated order and payment system for use by consumers to rapidly order products and services from any location at which the consumer is present at the time of ordering. The system receives information about the products/services to be ordered by means of signals generated by scanning identification codes imprinted in advertising media or displayed to a consumer on a television screen. A special version of the invention is modified to accept voice command via a voice recognition means for those physically handicapped persons unable to perform manual data entry tasks. The consumer uses an optical scanning means embodied in the Order Computer Terminal to scan identification code associated with a company and identification codes associated with the products/services desired. This product and company information is stored in the Order Computer Terminal along with credit information retrieved from a plurality of storage means used on credit cards and subsequently transmitted when desired by the consumer to a Central Computer System. The Central Computer System simultaneously receives information from multiple order computer terminals and verifies that the products or services from the desired company are in fact available. The Central Computer System also verifies the credit worthiness of the consumer by searching for such information from credit data bases. When the Central Computer System determines that the desired products/services are available and that the consumer is credit worthy, an order verification signal is sent to the individual consumer's order computer terminal whereupon the consumer verifies that he/she wishes to order the products/services communicated to the central computer system. Once the consumer varifies the order, the automated order and payment systme places the order for the products/services desired and provides the appropriate credit reference to the supplier of the product/service. The automated order and payment system capabilities are more fully set forth herein.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.