System and Method for Preventing Multiple Online Purchases

• US 20100332267A1
• Filed: 06/02/2010
• Published: 12/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Etchegoyen, Craig Stephan
• Granted Patent: US 10,068,282 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/5
• 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:

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 a user-configurable parameter and a non-user-configurable parameter 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.

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

3. The method claim 1, wherein the limited items comprises an item selected from the list consisting of sporting tickets, concert tickets, and theatrical tickets.

4. The method claim 1, wherein the commerce client is configured to generate and send the device identifier of the user device to a remote server.

5. The method claim 1, wherein the predetermined period of time comprises a period from when a first purchase was made using the device having the received device identifier to when the limited items are no longer available.

6. The method claim 1, wherein the at least one non-user-configurable parameter is based on a silicone degradation characteristic of a computer chip of the device.

7. The method claim 1, wherein the at least one user-configurable parameter comprises one of hard disk volume name, user name, device name, user password, and hard disk initialization date for the device.

8. The method claim 1, wherein the device identifier is generated by utilizing at least one irreversible transformation of the at least one user-configurable parameter and the at least one non-user-configurable parameter of the device.

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

means for providing a commerce client to a user;

means for 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 at user-configurable and non-user-configurable parameters of the user device;

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

means for disallowing the device from executing further transactions for a predetermined period of time.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the commerce client comprises a means to allow the user device to perform a commercial transaction with an online commerce server.

11. The apparatus of claim 99, wherein the limited items comprises an item selected from the list consisting of sporting tickets, concert tickets, and theatrical tickets.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the commerce client comprises a means to generate and send the device identifier of the user device to a remote server.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the predetermined period of time comprises a period from when a first purchase was made using the device having the received device identifier to when the limited items are no longer available.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the at least one non-user-configurable parameter is based on a silicone degradation characteristic of a computer chip of the device.

15. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the at least one user-configurable parameter comprises one of hard disk volume name, user name, device name, user password, and hard disk initialization date for the device.

16. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the device identifier is generated by utilizing at least one irreversible transformation of the at least one user-configurable parameter and the at least one non-user-configurable parameter of the device.

17. A computer readable medium having stored thereon, computer executable instructions that, if executed by a device, cause the device to perform a method comprising:

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 at 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.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17, further include instructions that, if executed by the device, cause the device to perform a method comprising allowing the user device to perform a commercial transaction with an online commerce server.

19. The computer readable medium claim 17, wherein the limited items comprises an item selected from the list consisting of sporting tickets, concert tickets, and theatrical tickets.

20. The computer readable medium claim 17, further include instructions that, if executed by the device, cause the device to perform a method comprising generating and sending the device identifier of the user device to a remote server.