Change-based transactions for an electronic kiosk

• US 20060036501A1
• Filed: 06/29/2005
• Published: 02/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: TIO Networks Corp. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goncalves, Roy, Shahbazi, Hamed, Ericksen, Chris
• Granted Patent: US 8,886,557 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 19/20 Automatic teller machines [ATMs]
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 19/203 Dispensing operations within ATMs dispensing in general G07D11/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 5/24 with change-giving

Abstract

A variety of products and services can be integrated into and offered for purchase by an electronic kiosk. An electronic kiosk can accept funds for an initial transaction and the can apply any resulting amount of change from the initial transaction to a second transaction. The transactions can involve products and services and can be amount-based transactions or account-based transactions.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

selecting a first transaction from a plurality of transactions offered by an electronic kiosk;

executing the first transaction via the electronic kiosk resulting in a change amount;

selecting a second transaction from the plurality of transactions offered by the electronic kiosk; and

executing the second transaction via the electronic kiosk using the change amount to fund the second transaction.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

funding the first transaction with currency received by the electronic kiosk.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of executing the second transaction is executed by a computer process and further comprising:

communicating the change amount from the first transaction to the computer process that executes the second transaction.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of executing the second transaction comprises:

accepting funds in addition to the change amount to fund the second transaction.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of selecting a second transaction comprises:

receiving user input via the electronic kiosk specifying the second transaction from a plurality of transactions.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of transactions includes at least one amount-based transaction and at least one account-based transaction.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of selecting a second transaction comprises:

presenting a subset of the plurality of transactions based on the change amount.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the subset of transactions is selected according to whether the change amount is sufficient to fund each transaction in the subset of transactions.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the subset of transactions is selected to include only account-based transactions that allow over-payment.

10. The method of claim 1. wherein the operation of selecting a second transaction comprises:

selecting a subset of the plurality of transactions based on a user transaction history.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the subset of transactions is selected according to common previously selected transactions in the user transaction history.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the first transaction includes an amount-based transaction resulting in the change amount and the second transaction includes an account-based transaction.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein an amount-based transaction is a transaction with a pre-defined amount and a change amount results from an over payment of the pre-defined amount of the amount based-transaction.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein an account-based transaction is associated with an account and the account-based transaction has no pre-defined amount limit so that the change amount can be applied to the associated account.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the first transaction includes an amount-based transaction resulting in the change amount and the second transaction includes an amount-based transaction.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the first transaction includes an account-based transaction resulting in the change amount and the second transaction includes an account-based transaction.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the first transaction includes an account-based transaction resulting in the change amount and the second transaction includes an amount-based transaction.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the second transaction is executed at a discount using the change amount to fund the second transaction.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of selecting the second transaction comprises:

detecting a location of the electronic kiosk; and

presenting a subset of transactions from the plurality of transactions, wherein the subset of transactions is selected in relation to the location.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of executing the second transaction comprises:

adding the change amount to a balance stored on a stored value card.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of executing the second transaction comprises:

exchanging the change amount for a coupon having an amount.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the amount of the coupon exceeds the change amount.

23. A system comprising:

a transaction management module that selects a first and second transaction from a plurality of transactions offered by a electronic kiosk; and

a transaction processing module that executes the first transaction resulting in a change amount in the electronic kiosk and executes the second transaction using the change amount to fund the second transaction.

24. A computer program product encoding a computer program for a computer process that executes on a computer system the computer process comprising:

selecting a first transaction from a plurality of transactions offered by an electronic kiosk;

executing the first transaction via the electronic kiosk resulting in a change amount;

selecting a second transaction from the plurality of transactions offered by the electronic kiosk; and

executing the second transaction via the electronic kiosk using the change amount to fund the second transaction.