Communications: electrical – Continuously variable indicating – With meter reading
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-21
2001-03-27
Horabik, Michael (Department: 2735)
Communications: electrical
Continuously variable indicating
With meter reading
C382S115000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06208264
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the field of point-of-sale personal verification systems and, more particularly, to a method and system to ensure at a point-of-sale transaction that an individual in possession of a transaction device or instrument such as a credit or debit card key is the one authorized to have the transaction device. The present invention verifies that the holder is properly in possession of the transaction device without necessarily disclosing the identity of the holder, but may be adapted to provide a merchant or other business proprietor with the holder's identity.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In financial and commercial transaction systems today, there is a need to positively verify the status of a person who requests goods and services from a system at an unattended site or from someone to whom he is not known. The same is true of one who seeks access to a restricted site. Such systems are commonly used in connection with retail purchases using credit or debit cards, employee access control at restricted areas, and student identification cards at libraries and campus events, among others.
Some existing identification systems use a secret code, often referred to as a personal identification number (PIN). Other systems rely upon one's likeness to a photograph, or the possession of an instrument such as a key or an encoded card in an effort to confirm an individual's identity. Such a system is offered by Identicator Technology of San Bruno Calif. In this system, the verification process compares the holder's unique fingerprint features that are stored on the magnetic stripe of a card or smart card with the cardholder's live finger image. The fingerprint scanning is performed by the holder placing his finger on a peripheral device that authenticates the owner of the card and links the card to the cardholder. Thus, the scanning is performed apart from the data on the card.
Still other methods, including the evaluation of a signature, the matching of finger prints, sensing the likeness of a voice, the geometry of a hand, and other means, may use these or a combination of methods. Unfortunately, such systems often rely upon the skill and attention of busy sales or other service people, and there is often no way to detect if an instrument has been stolen or otherwise not in the possession of one who is authorized to hold the instrument. In other words, the possession of such an instrument does not confirm an individual's identity, or verify that the holder of an instrument is authorized to do so.
The most commonly used identification methods in use today for credit and debit cards is either the PIN system or comparison with a simple, hand-written signature in a space provided on the card. Such means have proved satisfactory in the vast majority of transactions, because most people are in fact honest. However, for the unscrupulous, the security provided by such means has proved to be inadequate. Thus, there remains a need for a means to positively verify the status of an individual at a point of sale for goods or services, or at an unattended site, such as at an automated teller machine and the like.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses these and other drawbacks of the prior art. In this system, the user carries a specially designed card key containing a machine-readable code that is unique to the proper holder of the card key. In one aspect of the present invention, the code is an encrypted data set representing the user's thumbprint. The system senses the user's thumbprint on or adjacent to the card key when the card key is inserted into or turned in a keyhole or card slot. The code and thumbprint are simultaneously read by a split laser beam and must match with previously recorded data before an indication of satisfactory verification can be returned.
The system further includes a centralized database containing data and processing software for recognizing the encoded card keys of the system, in addition to data and processing software for authenticating a user's thumbprint as just described. A network links this centralized database to a number of remote terminals at sites where identification is required. Distributed networks are common in today's identification systems involving a group of remote sites, and the present invention takes advantage of and improves upon the existing infrastructure of distributed networks.
At each remote site in the system, a counter-top device serves as a terminal unit. The terminal unit includes a keyhole that is readily accessible to the user. The terminal also contains the laser scanner which reads data from the encoded card key and from the thumbprint of the user. In one embodiment, this data is then encoded for secrecy and transmitted to the central database. The data is processed at the central database and a response is returned to the originating terminal. In another, preferred embodiment, authentication of the thumbprint scan and encoded data is performed at the terminal unit.
In another aspect of the present invention, the terminal may also read data from a card or other document or from a keyboard, and transmit this additional data. Further, the terminal may take data pertaining to heart beat, respiration, and oxygen metabolism, through a small hole in the top of the card key. This feature is particularly useful in ensuring that the thumbprint scan is being read from a living, breathing human being, and not a synthetic facsimile of the genuine image.
In a preferred application of the system of the present invention, a card key is issued to each user. All card keys look alike on the outside and differ only by the digital code within the card key. The card key preferably includes a small portion which conforms to the outline of the user's thumb and the entire card key is small enough to fit onto a common key ring. The end of the card key which conforms to the user's thumb has a covering of thin film stretched over it and the inside of the film is coated with a highly reflective material. When the user's thumb is placed over the thin film, the film receives the configuration of the user's thumbprint. The ridges and valleys of the thumbprint are thus reproduced on the mirrored surface of the inside of the film. Since the mirrored surface on the underside of the film is inside the card key, it is protected from surface scratches.
The person who is to be identified places the card key into the keyhole. As the card key is comfortably held, the user's thumb fits over the thin film stretched across an oblique cut at the end of the card key away from the keyhole. The position of the thumb is indexed to the proper orientation by an external tab underneath the card key. This tab fits naturally in the crease in the index finger bent into a crook, as the user grasps the card key between thumb and forefinger.
The presence of the card key in the keyhole activates the terminal. The terminal focuses a laser beam onto the interior reflective surface of the thin film and scans the impressed fingerprint. The beam is also made to scan the floor or bottom of the inside of the card key, extracting the coded data by reflection. Thus, the present invention in one aspect comprises a personal identification system. The system includes a personal identification card encoded with fingerprint data and a scanner to scan the fingerprint data on the card. The system further includes a centralized data and processing unit in communication with the scanner, a comparator to compare the data scanned by the scanner with data previously stored in the centralized data and processing unit, and an arbitrator to determine a match between the fingerprint data encoded on the personal identification card and the data previously stored in the centralized data and processing unit.
As previously described, data may also be obtained from a card, a document reader, or a keyboard, rather than or in addition to the data on the inside of the car
Bradney Monty T.
Reid Herbert Wayne
Stairhime, Jr. Walter L.
Warfel George
Automated Identification Service, Inc.
Bracewell & Patterson L.L.P.
Horabik Michael
Shimizu Matsuichiro
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