Product locker for multi-merchant purchasing environment for downloadable products

• US 20060167811A1
• Filed: 01/24/2005
• Published: 07/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nolan, Sean, Bhambri, Vikram, Hempey, Matthew D., Button, Thomas L., Sausville, Paul C., Walsh, Deirdre L., Biyani, Raj, Warren, Susan
• Application Number:
  US11/042,932
• Publication Number:
  US 20060167811A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0617 Representative agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment information associated with the user and, with minimum user-interaction, sends the payment information to applications associated with the merchants for processing. The multi-merchant purchasing system may also be configured to receive purchase information from the merchant applications and maintains the purchase information for the user in a locker. The multi-merchant purchasing system may further be configured to automatically download and install the purchased product onto the user'"'"'s computing device through a software assistant. To ensure privacy and security, the multi-merchant purchasing system may include a credit card quarantine module to secure credit card data by encoding and multiple levels of encryptions.

Claims

1. ) One or more device-readable media having device-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

identifying a user associated with a commerce application configured to manage transactions involving multiple merchants;

determining downloadable products previously purchased by the user through the commerce application, the purchased product being purchased from the multiple merchants;

retrieving purchasing information associated with the purchased products, the purchasing information including licensing information associated with the purchased products; and

providing the purchasing information to a client application associated with the user, the purchasing information enabling the client application to provide a centralized environment for managing the downloadable products purchased from the multiple merchants.

2. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request from the client application to perform an operation related to at least one of the purchased products;

identifying a license from the purchasing information, the license being associated with the at least one purchased product;

determining if the requested operation is authorized by the identified license; and

if the requested operation is authorized, performing the operation.

3. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 2, wherein the requested operation includes at least one of repeated downloading of the purchased product, downloading the purchased product onto multiple computing devices, or upgrading the license associated with the purchased product.

4. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 2, further comprising updating the purchasing information to include the performed operation.

5. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 2, further comprising providing information about the performed operation to the merchant associated with the purchased product corresponding to the operation.

6. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

determining configuration information of purchased products corresponding to a computing device associated with the user, the configuration information including how the purchased products was previously configured on the computing device; and

providing instructions to the client application to automatically image the computing device based, at least in part, on the configuration information.

7. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising authenticating the user before providing the purchasing information to the client application.

8. ) One or more device-readable media having a data structure comprising:

a first data field including user identifiers, each user identifier indicating a user that has made a purchase through a commerce application configured to enable downloadable products from multiple merchants to be purchased and to provide a centralized environment to manage the purchased downloadable products; and

a second data field indexed to the first data field, each entry of the second data field including purchasing information for downloadable products purchased by the user indicated by the corresponding user identifier in the first data field, the downloadable products being purchased from the multiple merchants through the commerce application, the purchasing information including licensing information associated with at least one of the purchased products.

9. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 8, wherein the data structure further comprising:

a third data field indexed to the first data field, each entry of the second data field including a merchant identifier indicating a merchant associated with the commerce application;

wherein each entry of the second data field is associated with at least one of the entry in the third data field.

10. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 8, wherein purchasing information in the second data field includes at least one of licensing information, purchase history, estimated downloading time for the downloadable products, downloading history, or links to websites provided by the merchants.

11. ) The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 8, wherein the licensing information includes at least one of a license number, a key, an activation code, descriptions, restrictions, or warranty information.

12. ) A system for managing purchased digital content comprising:

a data store including purchasing information associated with users that purchased downloadable products through the system, the purchasing information including license information associated with downloadable products purchased by each user, the purchased products being purchased from multiple merchants;

a locker module configured to manage transactions involving the purchased downloadable products, the locker module also configured to provide the purchasing information in the data store to client applications associated with the users, the purchasing information enabling each client application to provide a centralized environment for managing the downloadable products purchased from the multiple merchants through the system, the locker module further configured to receive requests for performing operations related to a downloadable product from a client application associated with at least one of the client applications and to perform the operations based, at least in part, on the purchasing information associated with the user corresponding to the at least one client application.

13. ) The system as recited in claim 12, wherein the locker module is further configured to update the purchase information in the data store with data associated with the performed operation.

14. ) The system as recited in claim 13, further comprising merchant applications associated with the merchants, wherein the locker module is further configured to receive the purchase information from the merchant applications and to record the purchase information in the data store.

15. ) The system as recited in claim 14, wherein the locker module is further configured to send the data associated with the performed operation to the merchant application corresponding to the downloadable product that is related to the operation.

16. ) The system as recited in claim 12, further comprising an authentication module configured to provide authentication information to a user to the locker module, wherein the locker module is configured to identify the authentication information before performing the operation.

18. ) The system as recited in claim 12, further comprising an administrative module configured to enable a system administrator to manage the data store.

19. ) The system as recited in claim 12, wherein the data store is configured as a database or a Structured Query Language (SQL) database system.

20. ) The system as recited in claim 12, wherein at least one of the locker module and client applications is configured as a web service.

17. ) (canceled)