SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATED MEDIATION OF VENDOR ACCOUNTS
Field of the. Invention •
The invention relates to the • field of electronic
commerce, and more particularly to an engine for the automated
exchange of value between different stored value cards and
other special-purpose vendor accounts.
Background of the Invention,
Recent years have seen the widespread use of incentive
marketing techniques for various goods and services, including
account or account-like reward programs such as frequent flyer
miles programs for airlines. These marketing programs may be
conducted for affinity, branding, consumer incentive, market
research and other purposes. Many of these advanced marketing
techniques take the form of stored value or prepaid
transaction-oriented accounts, such as the long-distance
telephone minutes, bonus gasoline and other incentives or
purchase units.
While many consumers appreciate and take advantage of the
convenience of these cashless stored value accounts, very few
if any of these rewards programs are ubiquitously available,
for example for reuse or conversion on -the Internet.
Therefore these rewards and other incentive programs are
often not fully utilized by the consumers entitled to their
use, in part because the consumers are locked into applying
the stored valued to transactions with individual vendors.
Those vendors may not be located within a geographic area
which is convenient to the consumer, reducing the chances of
redemption of those accounts. Or the value represented by i those accounts may only be eligible for the purchase of
defined categories of goods or services, which the consumer
may or may not have an immediate interest in.
The limited nature of stored value accounts is also a
disadvantage for many merchants and vendors. For instance, an
Australian airline which promotes travel packages using
frequent flyer mile accounts may find it difficult to attract
and fulfill trip contracts and other arrangements with, say, a
Canadian purchaser.'
Even if the travel offer is accepted, if the passenger
reneges, unwinding and settling such a failed or incomplete
transaction is not practical to the distant vendor, who would
-have to seek a recovery remotely in a foreign judicial system
or otherwise. More universal and reliable reward marketing
technology is desirable.
Summary of the Invention
The invention overcoming these and other problems in
the art relates to a system and method for automated
mediation . of vendor or other ecommerce accounts, in which a
network transaction engine is employed, to recognize, exchange
and mediate stored valued and other accounts offered by
individual vendors and held by consumers or others .
According to the invention, consumers may store, convert
and barter their accumulated vendor accounts with other
consumers or businesses, exchanging the value contained in
those financial objects across geographic and currency
boundaries. Disputed transactions may be remedied at the
level of the exchange engine operator, without a need to
invoke "a foreign judicial system. The utilization of stored
value accounts' via the syndication of the invention may
therefore be increased, to the convenience of both .consumers
and vendors .
Brief Description of the Drawings
The. invention will be described with reference to the
accompanying drawings, in which like elements are referenced
with like numerals.
Figure 1 illustrates an overall architecture for
transaction processing according to the invention.
Figure 2. illustrates a mediation action of a transaction
server according to the invention.
Figure 3 illustrates a flowchart of transaction
processing according to the invention.
Figure 4 illustrates an overall architecture for
transaction processing according to the invention in another
regard.
Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments
As illustrated in Figure 1, in the overall architecture
for stored value exchange according to the invention, a
customer or consumer operating an Internet or other client 102
communicates via communication link 114 to any one or more of
a group .of vendors 104a, 104b, ...104n (n arbitrary) . The
client 102 may be or include, for instance, a personal
computer running the Microsoft Windows™ 95, 98, Millenium™,
NT™, or 2000, Windows™CE™, PalmOS™, Unix, Linux, Solaris ™,
OS/2 ™, BeOS ™, MacOS ™ or other operating system or platform.
The. client 102 may also be or include a network-enabled
appliance such as a WebTV™ unit, radio-enabled Palm™ Pilot or
similar unit, a set-top box, a networkable game-playing
console such as Sony Playstation™ or Sega Dreamcast™, a
browser-equipped cellular telephone, or other TCP/IP client or
other device.
The communication link 114 to which the client 102
connects may be, include or interface to any one or more of,
for instance, the Internet, an intranet, a PAN (Personal Area
Network) , a LAN (Local Area Network) , a WAN (Wide Area
Network) or a MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) , a frame relay
connection, an Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) connection,
a synchronous optical network (SONET) connection, a digital
Tl, T3 or El line, Digital Data Service (DDS) connection, DSL
(Digital Subscriber Line) connection, an Ethernet connection,
an ISDN (Integrated Services . Digital Network) line, a dial-up
port such as a V.90, V.34 or V.34bis analog modem connection,
a cable modem, an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) connection,
or FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) or CDDI (Copper
Distrib.ut.ed Data Interface) connections. The communications
link 114 may furthermore be, include or interface to any one
or more of a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) link, a GPRS
(General Packet Radio Service) link, a GSM (Global System for
Mobile Communication) link, a CDMA (Code Division Multiple
Access) or TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) link such- as a
cellular phone channel, a GPS (Global Positioning System)
link, CDPD (cellular digital packet data) , a RIM (Research in
Motion, Limited) duplex paging type device, a Bluetooth radio
link, or an IEEE 802.11-based radio frequency link.
Communications link 114 may yet further be, include or
interface to any one or more of an RS-232 serial connection,
an IEEE-1394 (Firewire) connection, an IrDA (infrared) port, a SCSI (Small Computer Serial Interface) connection, a USB
(Universal Serial Bus) connection or other wired or wireless,
digital or analog interface or connection. Other illustrated
communications links may include the same types of resources.
Thus in the operation of the invention, a one or more of
a group of the vendors 104a, 104b,...104n may offer a variety of
consumer reward, incentive or other promotional accounts, such
as frequent flyer miles programs, rebate or refund programs,
long distance minutes programs, gasoline purchase card points,
gift certificate, retail merchant purchase amounts, or any
other of a variety of stored value, bonus, reward, purchase or
other accounts. In general the accounts offered by each of
the vendors 104a, ' 104b, ...104n may be for different types of
goods or services offered by that vendor, may originate from
or applicable to a variety of geographic regions or countries,
and may be designated in a variety of currencies or other
units, not necessarily local to or easily used by the
consumer.
The invention however operates to separate the economic'
value stored in any of a collection of stored value accounts
126a, 126b, ... 126n (arbitrary) held by individual consumers or
others from their individual issuers for broader use. In
particular, as illustrated in Figure 2, individual consumers
may register with a transaction server 106 communicating with
the vendors 104a, 104b, ...104n over communications link 116, to
permit the valuation and exchange of the various programs,
points, miles and other -account values to which they are
entitled.
The transaction server 106 may be or • include, for
instance, a 'workstation running the Microsoft Windows™
NT™, .Windows™ 2000, Unix, Linux, Xenix, IBM AIX, Hewlett -
Packard UX, Novell Netware™, Sun Microsystems Solaris™,
OS/2™,. BeOS™, .Mach, Apache, OpenStep™ or other operating
system or platform. The transaction server 106 may
generate, maintain and validate individual consumers in a
authentication database 110, in which identifying information
such as name, password, ID and other information may. be stored
for persons wishing to participate in or subscribe to the
mediated value market promoted by the invention.
The authentication database 110 may be, include or
interface to, for example, line information database (LIDB) -
type resources operating according to the SS7 signaling
standard and accessible over the public telecommunications
network, as understood by persons skilled in the art. The
authentication database 110 may likewise be, include or
interface to resources such as the ATT Corp. Billing
Validation Application (BVA) or the U.S. West Business
Validation Service (BVS) , or others. The authentication
database 110 may further be, include or interface to the
Oracle™ relational database sold commercially by Oracle Corp.
Other databases, such as Informix™, DB2 (Database 2) or other
data storage or query formats or platforms such as OLAP (On
Line Analytical Processing) , SQL (Standard Query Language) ,
Microsoft Access™ or others may also be used, incorporated or
accessed in the invention.
The transaction server 106 may, for instance, permit
individual subscribers to search for types of transactions of
interest .to them which may be paid for with stored value for
that or another vendor, directly or translated from another
rewards program registered for brokering according to the
invention. Thus a consumer may wish to investigate the
purchase of airfare using frequent flyer miles or other stored
value to a destination the consumer is considering for
vacation or other purposes.
Upon receipt of an inquiry against authentication
database 110, the transaction server 106 may search and detect
that participating vendors may accept accounts representing
value for the particular type of good or • service searched on,
and communicate the results to the consumer making the
inquiry. The transaction server 106 may do so in an anonymous
fashion, and provide authentication services to the
subscribers during exchange and other transaction stages
carried out according to the invention.
Linkages may also be established between businesses,
consumers and others holding different types of accounts.
Thus, for example, a variety of transactions may be performed
according to the invention, including consumer-to-consumer
transactions in which one consumer stored value account 126a
is debited upon an authorized exchange with the second
consumer stored value account 126b, whose value is increased
in at ..an. exchange rate determined by the parties or by
reference to an external source .
Thus a consumer desiring to purchase airfare to a
particular destination may effect the transaction by
exchanging an amount of a different stored value account they
may hold, such as a long distance telephone card, with a
frequent flyer account of another subscriber willing to make
that exchange .
Or the consumer wishing to ' make that purchase may find
that a given airline or other travel vendor is willing to
accept payment in other stored value units such as long
distance telephone minutes, because that vendor may in turn
barter or convert that value according to -the invention at a
later time.
The invention thus enhances frictionless commerce for all
parties concerned, including between different vendors 104a,
104b,...104n in different locations or different currencies by
permitting them to accept - different types of stored value in
payment for their services, even if the stored value accounts
being presented payment are not ones originally issued by them
or are not related to their locale.
Thus, for instance, in another example of a consumer-to-
vendor transaction according to the invention, one or more of
the vendors 104a, 104b, ...104n may solicit or be contacted by a
consumer .wishing to purchase, say, automobile parts in a given
geographic area, but that consumer does not hold an account
with that merchandise vendor.
The consumer may then initiate a transaction using
transaction server 106 which presents other stored • value
accounts to the transaction server 106, which . the transaction
server 106 validates against the authentication database 110.
The stored account balance on that account may be converted
into an appropriate currency format for the desired local
transaction using currency database 130. The currency
database 130 may be loaded with data from the International
Monetary Fund ■ (IMF) or other governmental or commercial
sources to mediate translations between accounts.
The vendor or vendors 104a 104b ... 104n may then receive
payment in their local currency or in their specific stored
value account, while the different, converted stored value
account belonging to the purchasing consumer may be debited in.
authentication database 110 accordingly. Delays or
authentication routines may be applied against transactions on
a selective or continuous basis, to guard against transaction
fraud such as kiting or laundering between invalid accounts. •
Because the exchange' of stored value according to the
invention may proceed at distant locations, electronic
commerce is enhanced, and the need for particular use of
individual currencies may often be eliminated. The brokering
effect of the mediation engine of the invention frees
consumers to use stored value across a broader spectrum of
purchase activity, while localizing the reconciliation of
accounts and other support services in the transaction server
106.
Moreover, if desired the invention may be configured to
maintain anonymity in whole or part for transactions carried
out according to the transaction engine described, by use of
encryption, public key, third party validation or ' other
techniques. The invention imparts a more cash-like quality to
stored value or other debit accounts, since the value is
liberated from the level of individual merchants or programs
to be used across different types of goods and services.
In another embodiment of the invention, the transaction
server 106 may be configured to permit selective overdraft
against one or more of the stored value accounts 126a, 126b ...
126n according to criteria established by one or more of the
individual vendors 104a, 104b ... 104n or otherwise. Individual
ones of the stored value accounts 126a, 126b ... 126n may
likewise be used to back or collateralize other accounts.
Receipt, on-line confirmations and other reporting and
reconciliation functions may also be provided or initiated by
the transaction server 106.-
Overall processing according to the invention will be
described in another respect with reference to Figure 3. In
step 302,' processing begins. In step 304, one or more
■ consumers establish accounts via transaction server 106 to
record individual stored alue accounts 126a, 126b ... 126n. I
step 306, one or more individual vendors 104a 104b ... 104n may
establish a registration with transaction server 106. In step
308, a consumer may initiate a transaction, such as. for the
purchase for goods or services via the Internet.
In step 310, the consumer's account may be validated
against the authentication database 110 or other resources by
the transaction server 106. In step 312, the consumer
completes a purchasing action, such as by clicking on a "buy"
button on the vendor's Web page. In step 314, a total
transaction amount may be calculated. In step 316, the
consumer may indicate that one or more stored value accounts
belonging to that consumer are to be presented in payment for
the pending transaction. In step 318, the transaction- server
may interrogate the authentication database 110 to ensure
adequacy of the consumer's accounts for consummation of the
transaction.
In step 320, the transaction server 106 may access
currency database 130 as necessary for currency conversion.
In step 322, the vendor may be presented with a validated
transac.ti.on completion signal, allowing the transaction to
close. In step 324, the vendor's account within
authentication database 110 may be credited according to the
amount exchanged, or payment may be directed to the merchant
in another .manner. In step 326, receipts or confirmations may
be generated for transmission to both consumer and merchant,
in step 328, processing ends.
An overall architecture according to the invention in
another regard is illustrated in Figure 4, in which the
interconnection of the transaction server 106, a telephony
engine 108 such as the Nortel Networks DMS™ platform for
metering, billing or other associated services, the vendor
transaction site or sites such as Web pages or other portals,
the client and other aspects are shown.
In general, according to the overall architecture in
which the invention in one embodiment may operate, consumers
may initiate and execute transactions over a dial-up,
broadband or other .Internet or other network connections,
which . transactions may be monitored and mediated via
transaction server 106, telephony engine 108 along with
attendant database, communications and other resources. The
messaging traffic between the consumer and the vendor, and
between the vendor and the authentication resources, again may
be of a. partial, anonymous and/or secure nature.
This is at least in part because the invention does not
demand the transmission of complete identity or account
information, whether in the clear, encrypted or otherwise, at
any one stage of the transaction process. Rather, a subset of
selected attributes, fields or keywords may be queried between
the consumer " and the commercial vendor for the separate
transmission to the party, company or other organization
operating the transaction server 106, telephony engine 108 or
authentication database 110, and only the party providing the
authentication function necessarily records more complete
information in order to carry out that task. As shown in that
figure and described above, billing against the consumer's
account, telephone bill or otherwise may be triggered by a
validated authentication sequence whose details may never be
communicated to the vendor. The vendor may consequently
receive payment directly * or indirectly from banks or other
financial intermediaries separately after that process, with
whom the- consumer separately reconciles. Transaction privacy
and flexibility for consumers are therefore enhanced.
The foregoing description of the system and method of the
invention is illustrative, and variations in configuration and
implementation will occur to persons skilled in the art. For
instance, while the invention has been described with respect
to individual consumers applying stored valued accounts to
vendors to effect' online or other transactions, consumers
could also pool their accounts for aggregate transactions, or
the transactions may involve three or more parties.
Moreover, while the points, miles, or other units of
value stored within the stored value accounts 126a, 126b ...
126n have been described as generally fixed, it is possible
that the value of different miles, telephone minutes, rewards
points and other units may float freely including in exchange
markets between participating consumers on transaction server
106 and other media.
Furthermore, certain resources such as computing, data,
communications or other resources illustrated as singular or
standalone may be distributed, . and one or more separate
resources may be combined. Moreover, while the invention has
been generally been described with respect to purchase
transactions involving the* debiting of the consumer's account,
in another embodiment steps of the transaction processing may
be executed in reverse manner to recharge, refund or otherwise
credit the consumer's account.
Likewise, companies, organizations or other parties
operating or supervising different segments of the processing
chain could be one in the same, so for example authentication
entities could also own or operate the transaction engine or
engines.,. .or other resources. The scope of the invention is
accordingly intended to be limited only by the following
claims.