Digital active advertising - Patent Review 5724424

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An open network sales system providing for real-time authorization of purchase transactions, comprising:

a plurality of buyer computers; and

a plurality of merchant computers;

said plurality of buyer computers and said plurality of merchant computers being interconnected by a public packet switched communications network;

at least one of said plurality of merchant computers being programmed to store digital advertisements in a database;

each one of said buyer computers being programmed to receive a user inquiry and, in response to said user inquiry, to select at least one of said merchant computers and to transmit a network request thereto over said public packet switched communications network;

at least one of said merchant computers being programmed to cause one of said digital advertisements to be communicated to said one of said buyer computers over said public packet switched communications network in response to said network request from said buyer computer;

said one of said buyer computers being programmed to display said one of said digital advertisements, and, in response to a user request, to transmit over said public packet switched communications network to at least one of said merchant computers a purchase message and to cause a payment request, comprising a payment amount, to be transmitted over said public packet switched communications network into a payment system comprising a financial authorization network external to said public packet switched communications network, in order to initiate authorization of purchase of a product having real monetary value advertised in said one of said digital advertisements and in order to initiate recordation of information pertaining to said payment request and an authorization in a settlement database;

at least one of said merchant computers being programmed to receive said purchase message, and to cause said product to be sent to a party conditioned on said purchase transaction having been authorized in real time by said financial authorization network external to said public packet switched communications network, based on an external credit card account or an external demand deposit account having sufficient credit or funds of real monetary value available to a principal making said payment, and conditioned on at least one message transmitted over said public packet switched communications network in connection with purchase of said product not being a replay attack of a message previously transmitted over said public packet switched communications network;

said payment request comprising at least one digital signature of components that include components derived from said payment request, at least one of which digital signatures protects said payment request from forgery, including authenticating an identity of one of a plurality of principals as an originator of said payment request, at least one of which digital signatures protects said payment request from replay attack, and at least one of which digital signatures is computed based on a principal-specific secret key.

2. A network sales system in accordance with claim 1, wherein said payment system is configured to perform a replay check of said payment request to determine whether an identical payment request was previously transmitted to said payment system.

3. A network sales system in accordance with claim 1, wherein at least one of said merchant computers is programmed to communicate a missing payment information request message to said buyer computer to obtain missing payment information, said buyer computer is programmed to query a user for said missing payment information and to transmit said missing payment information to at least one of said merchant computers.

4. A network sales system in accordance with claim 1, wherein said payment request comprises a payment order that describes the identity of a sender, a payment amount, a beneficiary, and a nonce.

5. A network sales system in accordance with claim 1, wherein said demand deposit account comprises a debit card account.

6. An open network payment system for transferring funds having real monetary value from a sender to a beneficiary and providing for real-time authorization of payment transactions by a financial authorization network external to said network payment system, comprising:

a plurality of client computers; and

at least one payment computer;

said client computers and said payment computer being interconnected by a public packet switched communications network;

each one of said client computers being programmed to construct a payment request specifying a payment amount to be transferred from a sender to a beneficiary, and to cause said payment request to be transmitted to said payment computer over said public packet switched communications network;

said payment computer being programmed to cause a message to be transmitted into said financial authorization network external to said public packet switched communications network, in order to verify that said sender has adequate funds or credit having real monetary value, to receive an authorization from said financial authorization network in response to said message, to transmit an authorization message to said client computer over said public packet switched communications network, to cause information pertaining to said payment request and authorization to be recorded in a settlement database, and to cause funds having real monetary value to be transferred from said sender to said beneficiary conditioned on said payment request having been authorized in real time by said financial authorization network external to said public packet switched communications network, based on an external credit card account or an external demand deposit account having sufficient credit or funds of real monetary value available to said sender, and conditioned on at least one message transmitted over said public packet switched communications network in connection with transfer of said funds not being a replay of a message previously transmitted over said public packet switched communications network;

said payment request comprising at least one digital signature of components that include components derived from said payment request, at least one of which digital signature protects said payment request from forgery, including authenticating an identity of one of a plurality of principals as an originator of said payment request, at least one of which digital signatures protects said payment request from replay attack, and at least one of which digital signatures is computed based on a principal-specific secret key.

7. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said payment computer is programmed to perform a replay check of said payment request to determine whether an identical payment request was previously transmitted to said payment computer.

8. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said payment request comprises at least a partial delivery address, and wherein said payment computer is programmed to cause said delivery address to be checked against a database of allowed delivery addresses for said sender.

9. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said payment computer is programmed to cause at least partial allowed delivery addresses for said sender to be determined, and wherein said authorization message comprises said at least partial allowed delivery addresses.

10. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said authorization message comprises an authenticator.

11. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said client computer is programmed to cause an authenticator that verifies to said payment computer the identity of said sender to be transmitted to said payment computer, and wherein said payment computer is programmed to examine said authenticator to verify said identity of said sender.

12. A network payment system in accordance with claim 11, wherein said client computer is programmed to generate a next expected transaction identifier for said sender and to use it to create said authenticator, and wherein said payment computer is programmed to generate said next expected transaction identifier for said sender and to verify that said authenticator was created using said next expected transaction identifier.

13. A network payment system in accordance with claim 11, wherein said client computer is programmed to generate said authenticator using an external device, and wherein said payment computer is programmed to verify that said authenticator was created using said external device.

14. A network payment system in accordance with claim 11, wherein said payment request comprises a network address of said client computer, and wherein said payment computer is programmed to verify that said payment request was constructed at said network address.

15. A network payment system in accordance with claim 10, wherein said payment request comprises a network address of said client computer, and wherein said payment computer is programmed to check said network address against a database of allowed client addresses for said sender.

16. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said payment computer is programmed to determine whether real-time authorization is necessary and to cause said message to be transmitted into said financial authorization network to verify that said sender has adequate funds or credit only if said payment computer has determined that real-time authorization is necessary.

17. A network payment system in accordance with claim 6, wherein said demand deposit account comprises a debit card account.

18. A method of effecting sales over a network sales system comprising a plurality of buyer computers and a plurality of merchant computers interconnected by a public packet switched communications network, said method providing for real-time authorization of purchase transactions and comprising the steps of:

storing digital advertisements in a database;

receiving a user inquiry at one of said buyer computers and, in response to said user inquiry, selecting one of said merchant computers, and transmitting a network request from said one of said buyer computers thereto over said public packet switched communications network;

communicating one of said digital advertisements from one of said merchant computers to said one of said buyer computers over said public packet switched communications network in response to said network request from said buyer computer;

displaying said one of said digital advertisements at said one of said buyer computers, and, in response to a user request, transmitting over said public packet switched communications network from said one of said buyer computers to one of said merchant computers a purchase message, and causing a payment request, comprising a payment amount, to be transmitted over said public packet switched communications network into a payment system comprising a financial authorization network external to said public packet switched communications network, in order to initiate authorization of purchase of a product having real monetary value advertised in said one of said digital advertisements and in order to initiate recordation of information pertaining to said payment request and an authorization in a settlement database; and

receiving said purchase message at one of said mercha