System for enabling access to a body of information based on a credit value, and system for allocating fees
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorKeiichi Iwamura
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An accounting apparatus has a money input, by which a user can input an amount of money into the apparatus. A receiver receives a body of information transmitted over a communication medium, and a register is arranged to store at least two data received with such body of information. A control unit processes the at least two data in the register received with such body of information, and the amount input by the user via the money input, and an indicator indicates to the user whether the user is permitted access to the body of information, based on a result of processing provided by the control unit.
Claims37
An accounting apparatus, comprising:
- (a) a money input, by means of which a user can input a credit value into said accounting apparatus;
- (b) a receiver for receiving a body of information and corresponding money information, the money information being fee information related to a content of the body of information;
- (c) a register arranged to store at least additional information that is irrelevant to the body of information;
- and
- (d) a controller for performing a predetermined algorithm based on the additional information and the money information to generate a resultant value, and for comparing the credit value input by the user via said money input to the resultant value generated by the algorithm to determine whether or not the user is permitted to access the body of information.
An accounting apparatus, comprising:
- (a) an information processor;
- and
- (b) means for performing a predetermined algorithm to generate a resultant value, and for determining whether a body of information is permitted to be processed by said information processor, by comparing a credit value provided to said accounting apparatus with the resultant value,
- wherein the predetermined algorithm is based on additional information that is irrelevant to the body of information and money information that is fee information related to a content of the body of information.
A communication system comprising:
- (a) an information provider, which provides a body of information and corresponding money information relating to a content of the body of information;
- (b) a service provider, which provides a service relating to handling of the body of information provided by said information provider, said service provider adding additional information that is delivered with the body of information and the money information to a user, the additional information being irrelevant to the body of information;
- and
- (c) a charge distributor, which collects charges relating to provision of the body of information to the user by said information provider and to the service provided by said service provider, based on the money information and the additional information, respectively, said charge distributor performing at least one predetermined formula based on the money information and the additional information for determining an allocation of the charges to said information provider and said service provider, and for distributing respectively allocated portions of the charges to said information provider and said service provider based on the additional information.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.