Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Business processing using cryptography – Secure transaction
Reexamination Certificate
1996-12-13
2001-09-04
Barron, Jr., Gilberto (Department: 2132)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Business processing using cryptography
Secure transaction
C705S078000, C705S040000, C713S156000, C713S175000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06285991
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electronic billing and paying systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a secure interactive electronic statement delivery system suitable for use on open networks such as the Internet.
2. Background Art
Every month, millions of customers receive bills and other account statements from utilities, banks, stores, credit card companies, insurance companies, and other service providers. Almost all of these account statements are sent by mail.
A typical bill includes four primary components:
1. Summary information. Typically includes an amount due, a due date, a customer account number, a statement issuer Killer) name and address. The summary information is often printed on a detachable remittance stub that is intended to be returned by the customer with a check for payment.
2. A pre-addressed return envelope.
3. Detailed invoice of charges. Typically includes a detailed listing of the charges accrued. For example, if the account statement is a telephone company bill, the detailed invoice will list details of each toll call. The detailed information may include legally mandated information, particularly if the statement issuer is a public utility. For example, an electric company may be required to list monthly or yearly comparisons of a customer's energy use. The content and format of such legally mandated information may vary from one legal jurisdiction (town, county, state) to another.
4. Marketing materials. Statement issuers typically include information such as newsletters announcing new products or services, and often also include third party advertising pieces.
A customer typically pays a bill by writing a check for the amount due, placing the check and the remittance stub in the return envelope, sealing and stamping the envelope, and placing it in the mail.
For every bill received and paid by a customer, a billing institution (biller) has to perform numerous paper, handling tasks. Fist, the biller has to generate the bill and mail it to the customer. The bill generation process involves retrieving billing data for a customer, formatting the billing data in the legally prescribed manner, printing each customer's bill, placing the bill and other included materials in an envelope, and mailing the envelope to the customer. The biller also has to process the payment remittance received. Remittance processing involves opening envelopes, identifying the customer's account, extracting the check, and presenting the check for payment Given the large volume of bills sent out and payments received each month, the paper handling involved is a massive and expensive undertaking.
Various systems have been proposed to reduce the paper handling involved in bill paying and remittance processing. For example, there exist electronic bill payment service bureaus that allow customers to electronically pay their bills via a home computer or telephone. However, although use of these bureaus make bill paying more convenient for customers, they make remittance processing more expensive for billers because the payments forwarded to the biller by the bureau are exception items for many billers. When using a bill payment service, a customer directs the service bureau to make payments to the biller. As a result, the remittance is not presented to the biller in the usual way, i.e. a check with the biller's remittance stub in a single envelope. Instead, the biller receives payment, without the remittance stub, from the service bureau. The payment itself, depending on the practice used by the service bureau, may take a number of forms. The biller may receive a check printed by the service bureau drawn on the customer's bank account containing the customer's account number with the biller and MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) data encoding the customer's bank account number. Alternatively, the service bureau may consolidate payments from several. customers to a biller into a single payment. In this case, the biller receives one payment and a list of customers whose bills have been aggregated into the single payment In another automatic bill payment system, a customer pre-authorizes a biller to automatically deduct amounts due from the customer's bank account using the Automated Clearing House (“ACH”). In this case, the biller must comply with ACH procedures for validating and obtaining payments.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,206, issued Nov. 7, 1995, for “Electronic Bill Pay System”, assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference, discloses a bill pay system that allows customers to pay bills to participating billers through a centralized payment network operating according to preset rules. The participating customers receive bills from participating billers which indicate an amount owed and a unique biller identification number, which is assigned by the payment network. The bills may be mailed bills, e-mail notices, or implied bills for automatic debts. To authorize a remittance, a customer transmits to its bank, which is a participating bank, a bill pay order indicating a payment date, a payment amount, the customer's account number with the biller, a source of funds, and the biller's biller identification number. The customer's bank then submits a payment message to a payment network. The payment network forwards the payment message to the biller's bank. For settlement, the customer's bank debits the customer's account and is obligated to a net position with the payment network Likewise, the biller's bank receives a net position from the payment network and credits the biller's bank account. The biller receives payment details from the biller's bank, or alternatively directly from the payment network, and updates its accounts receivable records. The customer initiates bill pay orders manually via paper correspondence, at an ATM, via PC, or via telephone keypad.
Prior art systems have primarily addressed the bill payment portion of customer bill processing. The bill generation and presentation portion of customer bill processing has not yet been satisfactorily addressed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,206 suggests that bills may be sent electronically by e-mail, but does not elaborate. U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,084 for “Payment Authorization and Information Device”, issued Apr. 9, 1991, describes a home terminal for receiving and printing out billing information. The billing data is simple text data received by the customer via an encoded signal broadcast by a centralized invoice distribution center during vertical blanking intervals of a television broadcast or via telephone lines and a modem. A special device is used to decode and print out a hard copy of the received text. The same device can be used to pay the bill electronically.
The electronic bills delivered by these systems consist of simple text messages. As such, the electronic bills cannot deliver the same variety of information and materials as, and are therefore a poor substitute for, traditional mailed paper bills. Furthermore, these systems require the use of a specialized, centralized distribution network and/or special equipment.
Security is an issue for messages and other data transmitted over open networks such as the Internet. Encryption is one mechanism that can improve the security of transmitted communications. Two well known types of encryption are secret key encryption and public key encryption.
Secret key encryption is a symmetric form of encryption in which the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt messages. To encrypt a message, the message and the secret key are supplied to a software encryption program that transforms the message by means of an encryption routine that uses the secret key and the message as an input The original message can only be obtained from the encrypted message by applying a reverse, decryption process, which transforms the encrypted message by means of a decryption routine that u
Barron Jr. Gilberto
Beyer Weaver & Thomas LLP
Visa International Service Association
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