Revalidatable service supplying system

• US 4,908,499 A
• Filed: 12/18/1987
• Issued: 03/13/1990
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/1986
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Schlumberger Industries Incorporated (Schlumberger NV)
• Original Assignee: Schlumberger Industries Incorporated (Schlumberger NV)
• Inventors: Guion, Christian
• Primary Examiner(s): TRAFTON, DAVID
• Application Number:
  US07/135,095
• Time in Patent Office: 816 Days
• Field of Search: 235/380, 235/381, 235/436, 235/449, 902/4
• US Class Current: 235/380
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3433 the counter having monetary units
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/347 Passive cards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/363 with the personal data of a user
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/02 by keys or other credit registering devices

Abstract

The system comprises memory cards and card readers. The card memories (MEM) include validation memory points V_j and credit memory points C_i,j. The addresses of the validation points V_j and the addresses of the associated credit point C_i,j are defined by a reference table (TRR) and a permutation table (TP) which make use of a data item (Z_F) which is specific to the card.

Claims

1. A revalidatable service supplying system based a plurality of sets of expenditure data items with each expenditure data item being capable of being cancelled solely if a validation data item corresponding to its set has already been cancelled, the system comprising:

a plurality of data mediums, each medium including a plurality of cancellable memory points each having a physical address; and

a plurality of service-supplying machines each including read means for reading the states of said memory points and write means for cancelling memory points;

each medium including a fixed data item which is specific to that medium and which is readable by each machine; and

each machine including means for defining, as a function of said fixed data item, a configuration of physical addresses of memory points on the medium corresponding respectively to validation data items and to expenditure data items, together with the relationships between each validation data item and the corresponding set of expenditure data items.

2. A system according to claim 1, in which each machine includes means for comparing the physical addresses of the memory points which have been cancelled in the data medium with said configuration of physical addresses and with said relationships.

3. A revalidatable service supplying system according to claim 1, in which said means for defining said configuration of physical addresses and said relationships comprises:

means for storing a reference address table and a reference relationship table, the reference address table serving to associate each reference address with at least a portion of an expenditure data item or with at least a portion of a validation data item, and the reference relationship table serving to associate each reference address which is associated with an expenditure data item with the, or each, address of the validation data item from which the expenditure data item depends; and

means for generating a permutation table by using a predetermined algorithm common to all of the machines and said fixed data item of each card, with said permutation table establishing a one-to-one relationship between the set of said reference addresses and the set of said physical addresses.

4. A system according to claim 3, in which said reference relationship table defines an order relationship between the various reference addresses of the memory points within the same set of expenditure data items, said order being the order in which the memory points of the data medium should be cancelled when supplying services.

5. A system according to claim 1, in which each validation data item and each expenditure data item is associated with a single physical address and therefore with a single reference address.

6. A revalidatable system for supplying a plurality of services, wherein for each service there exists a plurality of sets of expenditure data items, with each expenditure data item being capable of being cancelled in order to obtain the corresponding service only if a validation data item corresponding to said set of expenditure data items has already been cancelled, the system comprising:

a plurality of data mediums for giving access to at least two of said services and comprising a plurality of memory points which are capable of being cancelled and each of which has a physical address; and

a plurality of machines each of which is capable of supplying at least one of said services, each machine including read means for reading the state of said memory points and write means for cancelling memory points;

each data medium including a fixed data item which is specific to the medium and which is readable by the machine; and

each machine including means for defining, as a function of said fixed data item, a configuration of physical addresses selected from the memory points in the medium corresponding to a particular service, and attributing some of the memory points therein to validation data items and the others to expenditure data items for said service, the machine also including means for defining the relationships between each validation data item and a corresponding set of expenditure data items, with the physical addresses of memory points on a medium for any one service being different from the physical addresses of memory points on the same medium for the other service(s).