System and method for preventing multiple online purchases

• US 10,402,893 B2
• Filed: 08/07/2013
• Issued: 09/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Original Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Inventors: Etchegoyen, Craig S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Erb, Nathan
• Application Number:
  US13/961,774
• Publication Number:
  US 20130325527A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,218 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0637 Approvals

Abstract

A method for preventing redundant purchases of limited items includes steps for providing a commerce client to a user, receiving (a) financial information of the user and (b) a device identifier from a device the user is using to run the commerce client, the device identifier being based on one or more of user-configurable and non-user-configurable parameters of the user device, determining whether a previous transaction has been made with the device associated with the received device identifier, and disallowing the device from executing further transactions for a predetermined period of time. The method may be executed by an apparatus such as a computer server or stored as a series of instructions on a computer readable medium.

Claims

1. A method for preventing redundant purchases of limited items, the method comprising the following steps:

providing a commerce client to a device;

receiving financial information of a user from the commerce client;

electronically sampling a physical, non-user-configurable parameter of the device;

generating, by the commerce client, a device identifier from the device the user is using to run the commerce client, the device identifier being generated by the commerce client running on the device and being based on at least the physical, non-user-configurable parameter of the device;

receiving the device identifier from the commerce client;

storing the device identifier on a commerce server remote to the device;

determining that a previous transaction has been made with the device associated with the received device identifier; and

disallowing the device from executing further transactions with the commerce server for a predetermined period of time;

wherein the non-user-configurable parameter comprises a sampling of degradation of the device; and

wherein the sampling of degradation of the device comprises measuring how fast electricity travels through carbon of the device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the commerce client is configured to allow the device to perform a commercial transaction with the commerce server.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving information unique to an item of commerce from the commerce client; and

generating, by the commerce client, a current transaction identifier based on the information unique to the item of commerce, wherein the step of disallowing the device from executing further transactions comprises disallowing the device from executing further transactions when the previous transaction has a same event identifier as the current transaction identifier.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the previous transaction has a previous transaction identifier that is different than the current transaction identifier.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the current transaction identifier comprises at least one of an event name, a location, and a date.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the device identifier is further generated by the commerce client based on at least one user-configurable parameter of the device selected from the group consisting of a hard disk volume name, user name, device name, user password, and hard disk initialization date for the device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the device identifier is further generated by the commerce client based on at least one irreversible transformation of the non-user-configurable parameter of the device.

8. An apparatus for preventing redundant purchases of limited items, the apparatus comprising:

means for providing a commerce client to a user device;

means for receiving financial information of a user from the commerce client;

means for electronically sampling a physical, non-user-configurable parameter of the user device;

means for generating, by the commerce client, a device identifier from the user device the user is using to run the commerce client, the device identifier being generated by the commerce client running on the user device and based on the sampling of the physical, non-user-configurable parameter of the user device;

means for receiving the device identifier from the commerce client;

means for storing the device identifier on a commerce server remote to the user device;

means for determining whether a previous transaction has been made with the user device associated with the received device identifier; and

means for disallowing the user device from executing further transactions with the commerce server for a predetermined period of time;

wherein the non-user-configurable parameter comprises a sampling of degradation of the user device; and

wherein the sampling of degradation of the user device comprises measuring how fast electricity travels through carbon of the user device.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the apparatus further comprises a means for transmitting the device identifier to an online ticket server.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the means for storing the device identifier comprises storage of the device identifier in a hidden directory of the user device.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the means for generating the device identifier uses a cryptographic hash function to irreversibly transform at least one input parameter to a portion of the device identifier.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the device identifier comprises a variable key portion and a system key portion.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the means for generating the device identifier comprises generating the variable key portion as a function of system time information at a time of registration of the user device.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the means for generating the device identifier comprises generating the system key portion as a function of at least one of a hard disk volume name, a user name, a computer name, a user password, and a hard disk initialization date.

15. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the physical, non-user-configurable parameter comprises a sampling of small device failures.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, upon execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

providing a commerce client to a user;

receiving financial information of the user;

sampling physical, non-user-configurable parameters of the computing device;

generating a device identifier from the computing device the user is using to run the commerce client, the device identifier being generated by the commerce client running on the computing device and being based on the sampling of physical, non-user-configurable parameters of the computing device;

storing the device identifier in a hidden directory of the computing device;

determining whether a previous transaction has been made with the computing device associated with the generated device identifier; and

disallowing the computing device from executing further transactions for a predetermined period of time;

wherein the non-user-configurable parameters comprise a sampling of degradation of the computing device; and

wherein the sampling of degradation of the computing device comprises measuring how fast electricity travels through carbon of the computing device.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the sampling of degradation of the computing device comprises measuring values for damaged sectors of the computing device.