Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Finance
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-04
2001-08-07
Elmore, Reba I. (Department: 2187)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Finance
C705S044000, C705S001100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06272475
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to apparatus and methods for the secure dispensing of bank papers.
Apparatuses for the dispensing of bank papers in the form of banknotes are known as automatic teller machines (ATMs).
In DE OS 27 17 345, a dispenser is shown that assembles and dispenses banknotes from magazine stores. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,945,277, an autonomous teller apparatus is specified in which cards with magnetic strips are used to code the account to be debited and the maximum quantity of the amount respectively to be dispensed. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,675,816, an automatic teller machine is likewise specified in which the data of a machine-readable check are compared with the data of a magnetic card in order to permit a payment. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,615, an automatic teller machine is specified in which for each payment or transaction a communication takes place, via a data communication means, with a central authorization computer, which simultaneously authorizes and logs the payment. The disclosure of the patent documents are fully incorporated herein by reference.
All known arrangements have in common that the control means, the dispenser, also called the decollator, the reading apparatuses for documents or magnetic cards, etc., are housed in the interior of a protected housing or safe, so that no unauthorized access to it is possible. Of course, the control unit must thereby be protected by the safe as well, because otherwise it would be possible to manipulate the control circuit for the purpose of dispensing money without authorization. As long as the control unit is developed specifically for this purpose and is of low complexity and power, this does not represent a particular problem.
However, to the extent that commercially available personal computers, with correspondingly complex operating systems and programs with several megabytes of code, are used as control computers, security monitoring of the software is extremely expensive. In addition, the actual problem-free exchange of modules always entails an opening of the safe, which as a rule may take place only under specific supervision.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to provide an apparatus or station for dispensing bank papers stored in a secure way, in which the components are arranged or, respectively, operated in such a way that the execution control unit can be located predominantly outside the safe that protects the bank papers.
To that end, in accordance with the invention, monitoring is provided in such a way that the (maximum) amount of each payment is limited independent of the rest of the control means, in that dispensing is blocked when the respectively authorized amount is exceeded.
In an embodiment, the invention provides an apparatus and method for the secure dispensing of bank papers, whereby a signed enable message contains an overall value of the bank papers to be dispensed, a verifier checks the signature, the overall value is compared with the sum of the values of the bank papers to be dispensed, and, from the comparison and inclusion of the checking of the signature, a blocking signal for the dispensing from a dispense opening is produced if the signature is invalid or the overall value is smaller than the sum.
For simplicity, the term “bank paper”, unless otherwise specified, is used herein for various objects and/or documents to which a numerical value is allocated, including, but not limited to, coins, pawn tickets, tickets to events, airline tickets, etc., as is further explained below.
These and other features of the invention are discussed in greater detail below in the following detailed description of the presently preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3675816 (1972-07-01), Bourke, II et al.
patent: 3845277 (1974-10-01), Voss et al.
patent: 3956615 (1976-05-01), Anderson et al.
patent: 5291560 (1994-03-01), Daugman
patent: 5604341 (1997-02-01), Grossi et al.
patent: 5606157 (1997-02-01), Awatsu et al.
patent: 5917168 (1999-06-01), Nakamura et al.
patent: 27 17 345 A1 (1978-11-01), None
Nolte Michael
Weigold Richard
Elmore Reba I.
Schiff & Hardin & Waite
Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme Aktiengesellschaft
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