MULTI-MERCHANT PURCHASING ENVIRONMENT FOR DOWNLOADABLE PRODUCTS

• US 20090171847A2
• Filed: 01/24/2005
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Button, Thomas, Walsh, Deirdre, Hempey, Matthew, Sausville, Paul, Nolan, Sean, Bhambri, Vikram, Biyani, Raj, Warren, Susan
• Application Number:
  US11/042,916
• Publication Number:
  US 20060167810A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

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 downloadable products for purchasing by a user, the downloadable products being offered by multiple merchants;

presenting a user-interface for purchasing the downloadable products from the multiple merchants with a single transaction;

determining payment information associated with the user;

providing the payment information to each of the merchants for processing, without interacting with the user;

receiving purchasing information from each of the merchants, the purchasing information including licenses for each of the purchased products; and

enabling the purchased products to be downloaded.

2. The one or more device-readable media recited in claim 1, wherein the steps further comprising:

retrieving updated product information about the downloadable products from the services associated with each merchant; and

providing the updated product information to the user prior to providing the payment information to the merchants.

3. The one or more device-readable media recited in claim 1, wherein the steps further comprising requesting authorization from the user prior to providing the payment information to the merchants.

4. The one or more device-readable media recited in claim 1, wherein the steps further comprising retrieving the payment information from a data store, without prompting the user for the information.

5. The one or more device-readable media recited in claim 1, wherein the steps further comprising:

requesting an authentication service to authenticate the user; and

if the user is not authenticated, preventing the user from purchasing the downloadable products.

6. The one or more device-readable media recited in claim 1, wherein the steps further comprising if the user is authenticated, receiving account information associated with the user from the authentication service.

7. A computing device configured to read the one or more device-readable media and perform the steps as recited in claim 1.

8. An apparatus configured with means to perform the steps as recited in claim 1.

9. A system for purchasing downloadable products comprising a purchasing module configured to receive a list of downloadable products that are provided by multiple merchants, the list of downloadable products being identified to be purchased by a user, the purchasing module also configured to present a user-interface for purchasing the downloadable products in a single transaction and to determine payment information associated with the user, the purchasing module further configured to provide the payment information to a service associated with each merchant and to receive purchasing information about the purchased products from services.

10. The system as recited in claim 9, further comprising an authentication system configured to authenticate the user and provide confirmation to the purchasing module.

11. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the purchasing module includes an interface for interacting with a catalog provider configured to enable the user to select the downloadable products provided by the multiple merchants and to send the list of downloadable products to the purchasing module.

12. The system as recited in claim 9, further comprising a software assistant configured to receive instructions for downloading the purchased products from the purchasing module and to download the purchased products onto a computing device associated with the user.

13. The system as recited in claim 9, further comprising a data store, wherein the purchasing module is configured to store the purchasing information in the data store.

14. The system as recited in claim 13, wherein the purchasing module is configured to retrieve the payment information from a data store, without requesting the information from the user.

15. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the downloadable products include at least one of downloadable digital content, software, music, videos, or graphics.

16. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the merchants include at least one of producers of the downloadable products, online retailers, resellers, or catalog providers.

17. A computer-implemented method for purchasing downloadable digital content comprising:

determining software products offered by multiple merchants, the software products being selected by a user through a shopping application;

providing a user-interface for purchasing the selected software products with a single transaction;

in response to a selection to purchase the software products, determining payment information associated with the user;

sending the payment information to merchant applications, each of the applications being associated with at least one of the merchants;

receiving purchasing information from each of the merchant applications; and

providing the purchasing information to the user.

18. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 17, further comprising retrieving from a data store the payment information provided in a prior transaction.

19. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 17, further comprising authenticating the user before sending the payment information to the merchant applications.

20. One or more device-readable media encoded with a computer-executable component configured to perform the computer-implemented method as recited in claim 17.