Shopping with a personal device

• US 10,068,271 B1
• Filed: 12/28/2011
• Issued: 09/04/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NCR Voyix Corporation
• Original Assignee: NCR Corporation (NCR Voyix Corporation)
• Inventors: Ben-Amotz, Roey
• Primary Examiner(s): Pond, Robert M
• Application Number:
  US13/338,965
• Time in Patent Office: 2,442 Days
• Field of Search: 705 261, 705 271, 705 26, 705 27
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/208 Input by product or record sensing, e.g. weighing or scanner processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/322 Aspects of commerce using mobile devices [M-devices]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3276 using a pictured code, e.g. barcode or QR-code, being read by the M-device
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted

Abstract

The disclosure presents a network, system, method and computer readable medium for using a personal device when shopping at a store using the server associated with this store. As described in the disclosure, the communication between the personal device and the store server is indirect via an intermediary system.

Claims

1. An intermediary system for shopping at a physical store, comprising

a hardware server configured to include

a device handler residing as software in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and the software executed by one or more processors of the hardware server, the device handler configured to communicate with personal devices regarding purchase transactions at stores and to communicate with loyalty information with loyalty providers for the purchase transaction, including being configured to receive requests from the personal devices, and wherein the device handler is an intermediary between the personal devices and the stores and between the personal devices and the loyalty providers, and wherein the request include barcode information transmitted to the device handler and the barcode information is associated with purchase items, and the device handler configured to communicate responses to said personal devices that are smartphones;

a transaction handler residing as software in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and the software executed by the one or more processors of the hardware server, the transaction handler configured to communicate with store savers and separately with the loyalty providers, the store servers configured to complete the purchase transactions regarding the purchase transactions at the stores using current locations of the personal devices to identify the stores and the store servers and confirming the stores and store servers based on received approvals from users operating the personal devices, the transaction handler also configured to communicate the requests to store servers and being configured to receive responses from said store servers, and wherein the transaction handler further configured to separately record loyalty details with the loyalty providers using the loyalty information; and

the store servers, and wherein the handler is further configured to automatically select and interact with some systems for the purchase transactions and identify and interact with other systems for the purchase transactions that are preconfigured by the store servers.

2. The intermediary system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to include:

a session handler residing as software in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and the software executed by the one or more processors of the hardware server, the session handler configured to control access to logs of sessions involving personal devices and store servers, so that said device handler and said transaction handler cannot concurrently access the same session log;

wherein said device handler is further configured to register requests in session logs and access responses from said session logs and wherein said transaction handler is further configured to access requests from said session logs and register responses in said session logs.

3. The intermediary system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to include:

at least one module configured to communicate with at least one webserver regarding the purchase transactions at the stores including being configured to communicate requests to said at least one web server and being configured to receive responses from said at least one webserver.

4. A method comprising:

receiving, by an intermediate server, an indication of a store from a personal device that is a smartphone, wherein the indication is a current location of the personal device and resolving the indication to the store based on the store being closest to the current location of the personal device and confirming the store based on a received approval from a user operating the personal device, wherein receiving further includes acting as an intermediary between the store and the personal device;

receiving, by the intermediate server, a request relating to a purchase transaction from said personal device, including barcode information included with a request to purchase an item;

communicating, by the intermediate server, said request to a store server that is responsible for completing the purchase transaction associated with said store and separately communicating loyalty information for the purchase transaction to a loyalty provider, wherein communication further includes acting as an intermediary between the personal device and the loyalty provider, and automatically interact, by the intermediate server, with some systems for the purchase transaction and automatically identify and interact, by the intermediate server, with other systems for the purchase transaction that are preconfigured by the store server;

receiving, by the intermediate server, a response to said request from said store server; and

communicating, by the intermediate server, said response to said personal device.

5. An apparatus, comprising

a hardware integrated store server configured to receive requests from clients and requests from personal devices to purchase items by receiving from the personal devices barcode information for the items, wherein the barcode information received indirectly from the personal devices through an intermediary system that resolves the store server based on current locations of the personal devices and confirming the store server based on received approvals from users operating the personal devices, and wherein the store server further configured to communicate responses to said clients and responses to said personal devices through communication with the intermediary system, and the store server further configured to complete purchase transactions involving the items, wherein the personal devices are smartphones, and wherein the intermediary system configured to record loyalty information separately from the store server for the purchase transaction with a loyalty provider by acting as an intermediary between the personal devices and the loyalty provider, and wherein the intermediary server further configured to automatically interact with some systems for the purchase transaction and automatically identify and interact with other systems that are preconfigured by the store server for the purchase transaction.

6. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having executable instructions that when executed by an intermediate computer system performs a method to:

receive an indication of the store from a personal device that is a smartphone by identifying a current location of the personal device as the indication and resolving based on that current location the store as a particular store that is closest to the current location and confirming the store based on a received approval from a user operating the personal device wherein receive further includes act as an intermediary between the particular store and the personal device;

receive a request relating to a purchase transaction from said personal device, barcode information included with the request to purchase an item associated with the purchase transaction;

communicate said request to a server that is responsible for completing the purchase transaction associated with said store and separately communicate loyalty information for the purchase transaction to a loyalty provider, wherein communicate further includes acting as an intermediary between the personal device and the loyalty provider and automatically interact with some systems for the purchase transaction and automatically identify and interact with other systems for the purchase transaction that are preconfigured by a store server for the store;

receive a response to said request back from said store server; and

communicate said response to said personal device.