Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Finance
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-26
2004-01-13
Akers, Geoffrey R. (Department: 3624)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Finance
C235S379000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06678664
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to cashless transactions. More specifically, the present invention relates to cashless transactions, including purchases of products by large numbers of consumers from retail stores or Internet sites, without the use of credit cards, debit cards or checks.
BACKGROUND ART
Over the past several years an international network of networks known as the Internet has become increasingly popular. The Internet allows millions of users throughout the world to communicate with each other. To provide users with easier access to information available on Internet, a World Wide Web has been established. The World Wide Web allows information to be organized, searched and presented on the Internet using hypertext. Thus, using the World Wide Web a user can submit a query for information and be linked electronically to information of interest which has been stored at web locations on the Internet. Using hypertext, a user can also communicate information to other users of the Internet. Hence, the Web has made it relatively easy for virtually anyone having access to a personal computer or other device connected to the Internet to communicate with others who are also connected to the network.
With the proliferation of Internet users, numerous services are now provided over the Internet. One of the first such services to be offered was electronic banking. Electronic banking allows banking customers to access their account information and execute banking transactions, e.g. the transfer of funds from a savings to checking account, by simply linking to a bank server using the Internet to access account information and communicate transfer instructions.
More recently, it has become possible to electronically pay bills by communicating instructions, via the Internet, to a financial institute maintaining deposited or credited funds of a pre-registered payer, or to a representative of the financial institute. The payments are then made to the payee by the financial institute or its representative. Funds from the payer's deposit or credit account, i.e. the payer's payment account, are debited by the financial institute to cover the payment. The payment by the financial institute or its representative to the payee can be made in any number of ways.
For example, the financial institute or representative may electronically transfer funds from the payer's payment account to the payee's deposit account, may electronically transfer funds from a financial institute/representative's deposit or credit account, to the payee's deposit account, may prepare a paper draft on the financial institute/representative account and mail it to the payee, may prepare an electronically printed paper check on the payer's payment account and mail it to the payee, or may make a wire transfer from either the financial institute/representative account or payer's payment account.
If the funds transferred to the payee are drawn from the financial institute/representative account, funds from the payer's payment account are electronically or otherwise transferred by the financial institute to the financial institute/representative account to cover the payment. Further, if the payment will be made from funds in the financial institute/representative account, the payment will preferably be consolidated with payments being made to the same payee on behalf of other payers.
Accordingly, such electronic bill payment systems eliminate the need for a payer to write or print paper checks and then forward them by mail to the payee. This makes it easier and more efficient for the payer to make payments. Payees receiving consolidated payments no longer have to deal with checks from each payee and therefore can process payments more efficiently. The making of payments by the electronic or wire transfer of funds provides even further efficiencies in payment processing by payees, and it is well recognized that making payments electronically can significantly reduce the cost of processing payments for both the payer and payee.
The number of users of electronic bill payment services has grown dramatically since introduced by CheckFree Corporation, the assignee of the present application. However, because the billing side of the billing/payment process had not been integrated with the electronic payment process, many potential users remained reluctant to utilize the service.
More particularly, until the recent offering by CheckFree Corporation electronic bill payment systems were operated independent of the bill presentment process. Still today, most conventional electronic bill payment systems generally require that the payee receive a conventional paper bill from a merchant or other billing entity, the exception being for certain bill payments, such as mortgage payments, which can be pre-authorized by the payee. Thus, for most bill payments, it is only after the paper bill has been received that the payee can connect to the electronic bill payment system via the Internet and provide a payment instruction.
Using CheckFree's fully integrated electronic bill presentment and payment system, registered merchants and other payers can electronically present bills to registered consumers and other payees by communicating bills via the Internet, to the electronic presentment/payment service provider, which could be a financial institute/representative or some other service provider. Typically, the bill is stored centrally on the electronic presentment/payment system server. The service provider notifies the payer, for example by Internet email, of the availability bill and the bill can then be accessed by the payer by connecting to the system server, via the Internet, to retrieve the bill. Once connected to the system server, the payer can also communicate a payment instruction to the server and the payment can then be made to the payee as previously described.
Accordingly, CheckFree's electronic bill presentment and payment system eliminates the need for a payee to print paper bills and then forward them by mail to the payer. This makes it easier and more efficient for the payee to issue bills. Payers receiving electronic bills no longer have to deal with paper bills from each payer. The combination of electronic presentment and payment of bills has provided even further efficiencies and cost reductions in billing and payment processing by both payers and payees.
Although electronic bill presentment and particularly integrated electronic bill presentment and payment have received broad user acceptance from both payers and payees, there remains a significant number of potential users of electronic bill presentment and payment services who are reluctant to register for the service. There appear to be various reasons for this reluctance on the part of both payees and payers.
One reason is that electronic bill payment services are generally provided by other than providers of accounts payable software. To pay bills electronically, a business payer must somehow transfer data output from the particular accounts payable software application being utilized to the electronic bill payment system. One way to do this is to manually input data generated by the accounts payable software application to the electronic bill payment system. Manual transfer is a tedious and error prone process. To solve this problem, it has been proposed that specialized software be developed to electronically transfer the data generated by the accounting software application in use to the electronic bill payment system. Others have proposed programming electronic bill payment systems to perform a database query on a new database created using the data output from the applicable accounts payable software and to import the files from this new database for use in performing electronic bill payment processing. It has been further proposed to program electronic bill payment systems to enter the pre-existing database files of the accounts payable software application in use and import the nece
Akers Geoffrey R.
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
CheckFree Corporation
LandOfFree
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