Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Business processing using cryptography – Secure transaction
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-24
2003-03-04
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Business processing using cryptography
Secure transaction
C705S001100, C705S026640, C705S050000, C705S070000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06529885
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of electronic commerce (hereafter “e-commerce”). More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for directory-authenticated electronic transactions including contingency-dependent payments via secure electronic bank drafts.
2. Description of the Related Art
The network of computers and networks commonly known as the Internet, initially developed as a military and academic communications tool, has now matured into a global communications medium. The explosive growth of the Internet, together with the increasingly ubiquitous availability of high bandwidth access thereto, has spurred efforts in adapting this medium for commercial purposes. The twin developments of the World Wide Web (hereafter “Web”) and the software tools for navigating the Web known as “browsers” have been instrumental in facilitating popular acceptance of the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet. Currently, a person wishing to buy goods and/or services on the Web (hereafter “Web buyer”) must first find the Universal Resource Locator (hereafter “URL”) of the merchant of interest (hereafter “Web seller”), typically using a search engine or a portal. Alternatively, the user may learn the URL of a seller from an advertisement or may store the URL obtained through whatever source and visit the seller site directly without going through a portal or search engine. Thereafter, the Web buyer must navigate to the Web seller's Web site, using his or her Web browser. After selecting the product the Web buyer wishes to purchase, the Web buyer is typically invited to fill out a lengthy electronic form on the Web seller's site. Such electronic forms usually request personal and confidential information, including at least the user's name, address, telephone numbers, email address, and credit card information. Often, the Web buyer is requested or invited to select a personal and unique identification tag (hereafter “ID”) and a password. Such ID and password pairs may then allow the Web buyer to bypass much of the data entry in the Web seller's electronic form upon his or her next visit to the Web seller's site. This, however, entails that the Web seller collects and stores the personal and billing information for each Web buyer. Although the majority of Web sellers may carefully secure and safeguard this wealth of personal information, the possibility exists that such information may be used for purposes other than originally contemplated by the Web buyer. Credit or charge card information is particularly sensitive to fraud and misuse. Indeed, a stolen (or misappropriated) but otherwise valid credit card number may be fraudulently used to purchase goods or services over the Web, due to the lack (or widely disparate nature) of security measures deployed by Web sellers to prevent such credit or charge card fraud. Such fraud is detrimental to all involved parties, including the credit card issuers, the Web buyers and the Web sellers, who must expend time and energy processing buyer complaints. The financial loss from credit card affects both credit card issuers as well as the buyer; the major loss, however, may be experienced by the merchant who has parted with the goods and has had the charge disallowed by the credit card issuer. For the merchant, this loss is a major disadvantage in the use of credit cards for e-commerce.
However, it is not only the Web buyer's credit card information that may be stolen. Potentially far more damaging is the possibility of what may be called identity theft, the misappropriation and misuse of a person's personal and financial information. The specter of identity theft is looming ever larger, as these Web-based electronic forms provide a pre-packaged, one-stop shopping source of highly detailed confidential information to unscrupulous individuals having access thereto. Although the vast majority of Web sellers are honorable and have established procedures aimed to thwart identity theft, the sheer proliferation of Web sellers on the Internet virtually ensures that such thefts will become increasingly commonplace.
Perhaps less actionable (but just as frustrating) is the possibility of what may be termed “identity confusion”. Here, one person may be confused for another and their respective personal information may be substituted or merged with one another. For example, a Web seller or credit agency may mistakenly merge two records of two identically named but separate persons. Again, this problem can only be exacerbated by the proliferation of Web sellers on the Internet, each requesting, warehousing and perhaps mining and/or selling the personal and financial information obtained from their Web buyers.
This proliferation of Web sellers also means that Web buyers are repeatedly requested to select a great many separate ID's and passwords pairs, one for each Web seller. It may become difficult, therefore, for the Web buyer to remember these ID-password pairs and/or to associate a particular ID-password pair with a particular Web seller. Some Web buyers resort to selecting a single ID-password pair and using that single ID-password pair for all of the Web sellers with whom they conduct business. This, however, is a less than satisfactory solution, as such Web buyers are more vulnerable to fraud should the single ID-password pair be misappropriated.
The perceived lack of security, simplicity and homogeneity in the data collection across Web sellers operate as barriers to entry into e-commerce, discouraging many potential buyers from purchasing goods and services on line. Web buyers, therefore, have an interest in promoting simple, homogeneous and secure Web-based transactions. What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems that allow financial transactions to be carried out on the Internet or other network in a manner that is simple, homogeneous across Web sellers and conducted in a manner that ensures the integrity and security of the Web buyers' personal and financial information.
The interests of Web sellers are generally aligned with those of their buyers, in that Web sellers have an interest in promoting simple and secure e-commerce, so as to attract the greatest possible number of buyers to their site. If an alternative to the indiscriminate collection of buyer's personal and financial information is to be implemented, Web sellers must be confident that they will be indeed paid for the goods or services they provide. What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems that will promote the interests of Web sellers and provide them with the complete assurance that they will be paid for the goods and services sold from their Web sites in a timely manner.
Curiously enough, banks thus far have not been an integral party to Web buyer—Web seller transactions. Indeed, although the money is ultimately debited from the Web buyer's bank account, or charged to his or her credit or charge card, the buyer's bank or other financial institution has not typically been actively involved in e-commerce transactions, as such transactions are conventionally structured. What are also needed, therefore, are methods and systems that include financial institutions such as banks as integral and central participants in e-commerce transactions.
Simple transactions involving a single buyer making an unconditional payment or an unconditional promise to pay a single seller, however, constitute only a fraction of the transactions that are routinely carried out. For example, many transactions involve contingent payments of some kind. Indeed, many transactions include built-in contingencies that must be met before goods or title will change hands or obligations released. Contracts for the purchase of real estate, for example, are complex transactions that typically involve the release of multiple contingencies (passing inspections, obtaining financing, carrying out improvements and other generally date-sensitive duties of both buye
Cosimano Edward R.
Oracle Corporation
Young Law Firm P.C.
LandOfFree
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