Electronic transaction card

• US 7,581,678 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2005
• Issued: 09/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Icashe Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Tyfone Incorporated
• Inventors: Tadepalli, Prabhakar, Narendra, Siva G., Spitzer, Thomas N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Frech; Karl D.
• Application Number:
  US11/063,291
• Publication Number:
  US 20060186209A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,652 Days
• Field of Search: 235/449, 235/494, 235/493, 235/375, 235/380, 235/386, 235/392, 235/451
• US Class Current: 235/451
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06187 with magnetically detectable marking
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06206 the magnetic marking being emulated
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07 with integrated circuit chips
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0703 the battery being onboard of a handheld device, e.g. a smart phone or PDA
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0723 the record carrier comprising an arrangement for non-contact communication, e.g. wireless communication circuits on transponder cards, non-contact smart cards or RFIDs
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0727 the arrangement being a circuit facilitating integration of the record carrier with a hand-held device such as a smart phone of PDA
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/073 Special arrangements for circuits, e.g. for protecting identification code in memory protection against unauthorised use of computer memory G06F12/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07741 comprising a first part operating as a regular record carrier and a second attachable part that changes the functional appearance of said record carrier, e.g. a contact-based smart card with an adapter part which, when attached to the contact card makes the contact card function as a non-contact card
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07758 arrangements for adhering the record carrier to further objects or living beings, functioning as an identification tag
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07762 the adhering arrangement making the record carrier wearable, e.g. having the form of a ring, watch, glove or bracelet record carriers for insertion in the human body for medical purposes A61B90/00; record carriers adapted for attachment to animals A01K11/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/0008 General problems related to the reading of electronic memory record carriers, independent of its reading method, e.g. power transfer
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/204 comprising interface for record bearing medium or carrier for electronic funds transfer or payment credit
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/327 Short range or proximity payments by means of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/341 Active cards, i.e. cards including their own processing means, e.g. including an IC or chip
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/353 Payments by cards read by M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces

Abstract

An electronic transaction card communicates with an add-on slot of an intelligent electronic device. The add-on slot may be a memory card slot. The intelligent electronic device may be a mobile phone or other device with or without network connectivity. The electronic transaction card may have magnetic field producing circuitry compatible with magnetic card readers, smartcard circuitry, other point-of-sale interfaces, or any combination thereof.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a stripe to communicate with a magnetic card reader; and

a memory card interface to communicate with an intelligent electronic device, the memory card interface being compatible with an add-on slot in an intelligent electronic device;

wherein the apparatus has dimensions smaller than a credit card, and wherein the stripe includes circuitry to produce at least one time-varying magnetic field.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a processing element coupled to the interface and to the stripe.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising an embedded swipe sensor to sense when the stripe is swiped through a magnetic card reader.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising nonvolatile memory accessible by the intelligent electronic device.

5. An apparatus comprising:

a stripe to communicate with a magnetic card reader;

a memory card interface to communicate with an intelligent electronic device, the memory card interface being compatible with an add-on slot in an intelligent electronic device;

a processing element coupled to the interface and to the stripe; and

a memory element to hold programming information for the stripe;

wherein the apparatus has dimensions smaller than a credit card.

6. An apparatus comprising:

means for communicating through a memory card slot in an intelligent electronic device;

circuitry for producing at least one time-varying magnetic field to represent financial transaction data; and

means for storing the financial transaction data.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 further including software to be installed on the intelligent electronic device.

8. The apparatus of claim 6 further comprising nonvolatile memory accessible through the means for communicating through a memory card slot.

9. The apparatus of claim 6 further comprising means to sense whether the memory card has been swiped through a magnetic card reader.

10. An apparatus comprising:

means for communicating through a memory card slot in an intelligent electronic device;

means for producing at least one time-varying magnetic field to represent financial transaction data;

means for storing the financial transaction data; and

software to be installed on the intelligent electronic device, wherein the software includes a module for single transaction account number generation.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the software is configured to run on a mobile phone.

12. A memory card comprising:

a memory card slot interface; and

circuitry including at least one conductor for carrying current for producing a time-varying magnetic field compatible with a magnetic card reader.

13. The memory card of claim 12 wherein the circuitry is configured to produce a plurality of time-varying magnetic fields compatible with a point-of-sale transaction device.

14. The memory card of claim 13 further comprising nonvolatile memory accessible via the memory card slot interface.

15. The memory card of claim 12 further comprising a processing device coupled to the memory card slot interface and the circuitry for producing a time-varying magnetic field.

16. The memory card of claim 15 further comprising a software component that when executed by the processing device causes the circuitry to produce the time-varying magnetic field.

17. The memory card of claim 15 further comprising software to be transferred to a device other than the memory card.