Performing automatically authorized programmatic transactions

• US 7,962,419 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2009
• Issued: 06/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gupta, Vikas, Krause, Duane J., Wei, Eugene, Schappell, David A., Jassy, Andrew R., Vermeulen, Allan H., Bezos, Jeffrey P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Reagan; James A
• Application Number:
  US12/543,372
• Publication Number:
  US 20090307106A1
• Time in Patent Office: 665 Days
• Field of Search: 705 50- 53, 705 64- 67, 705 75- 77, 380227-230, 713155-159
• US Class Current: 705/67
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/023 the neutral party being a clearing house
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/085 involving remote charge determination or related payment systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/367 involving electronic purses or money safes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3672 initialising or reloading thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3821 Electronic credentials
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/401 Transaction verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03

Abstract

Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between computing systems, such as by performing transactions between parties that are automatically authorized via a third-party transaction authorization system. In some situations, the transactions are programmatic transactions involving the use of fee-based Web services by executing application programs, with the transaction authorization system authorizing and/or providing payments in accordance with private authorization instructions previously specified by the parties. The authorization instructions may include predefined instruction rule sets that regulate conditions under which a potential transaction can be authorized, with the instruction rule sets each referenced by an associated reference token. After one or more of the parties to a potential transaction supply reference tokens for the parties, the transaction authorization system can determine whether to authorize the transaction based on whether the instruction rule sets associated with the reference tokens are compatible or otherwise satisfied.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for automatically authorizing transactions based on predefined instructions, the method comprising:

receiving a request related to a potential transaction between a first party and a second party that includes the second party providing at least one of one or more physical products and of one or more physical services to the first party and that includes an associated financial payment from the first party to the second party;

obtaining a first reference token of the first party that is for use in determining whether to authorize the associated financial payment for the potential transaction, the first reference token being associated with a first predefined payment instruction rule set of the first party that includes one or more rules for determining whether to authorize payment by the first party of financial amounts for transactions;

obtaining a second reference token of the second party that is for use in determining whether to authorize performing the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services for the potential transaction, the second reference token being associated with a second predefined payment instruction rule set of the second party that includes one or more rules for determining whether to authorize performance by the second party of transactions;

under control of one or more configured computing systems, automatically determining to authorize the potential transaction based at least in part on the first instruction rule set being determined to be compatible with the second predefined payment instruction rule set; and

facilitating providing by the second party of the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more configured computing systems are operated under control of the second party, wherein the automatic determining to authorize the potential transaction includes sending an indication to a third-party transaction authorizer for an authorization determination by the transaction authorizer, the sent indication including at least one of the obtained first reference token of the first party and the obtained second reference token of the second party, the transaction authorizer having access to the first and second payment instruction rule sets based on the first and second reference tokens, wherein the facilitating of the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party includes providing the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party, and wherein the method further comprises receiving the associated financial payment.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the obtaining of the second reference token of the second party that is associated with the second predefined payment instruction rule set of the second party includes, after the receiving of the request related to the potential transaction, interacting with the transaction authorizer to indicate the second predefined payment instruction rule set, the second predefined payment instruction rule set being indicated by the second party to authorize the potential transaction with the first party on behalf of the second party.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more configured computing systems are operated under control of the first party, wherein the automatic determining to authorize the potential transaction includes sending an indication to a third-party transaction authorizer for an authorization determination by the transaction authorizer, the sent indication including at least one of the obtained first reference token of the first party and the obtained second reference token of the second party, the transaction authorizer having access to the first and second payment instruction rule sets based on the first and second reference tokens, wherein the facilitating of the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party includes providing an indication that the second party is authorized to provide the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party, and wherein the method further comprises providing by the first party the associated financial payment.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the obtaining of the first reference token of the first party that is associated with the first predefined payment instruction rule set of the first party includes, after the receiving of the request related to the potential transaction, interacting with the transaction authorizer to indicate the first predefined payment instruction rule set, the first predefined payment instruction rule set being indicated by the first party to authorize the potential transaction with the second party on behalf of the first party.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more configured computing systems are operated under control of a third-party transaction authorizer system that has access to the first and second payment instruction rule sets based on the first and second reference tokens, wherein at least one of the obtaining of the first reference token of the first party and of the obtaining of the second reference token of the second party includes receiving one or more communications from at least one of the first and second parties, and wherein the facilitating of the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party includes providing an indication that the potential transaction is determined to be authorized.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the receiving of the request is further performed under control of the one or more configured computing systems operated under the control of the third-party transaction authorizer system, and wherein at least one of the first predefined payment instruction rule set and of the second predefined payment instruction rule set are specified by at least one of the first and second parties after the receiving of the request.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising obtaining the associated financial payment from the first party and providing the associated financial payment to the second party.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the potential transaction further includes one or more additional associated financial payments that are each by one of the first party, the second party, a third party related to the transaction, and a transaction authorizer system for the potential transaction, and are each to a distinct one or more of the first party, the second party, the third party and the transaction authorizer system.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatic determining to authorize the potential transaction is based at least in part on a third-party transaction authorizer system automatically determining to authorize the associated financial payment, and wherein the method further comprises, before the receiving of the request, interacting with the transaction authorizer system to define at least one of the first payment instruction rule set and the second payment instruction rule set and receiving at least one of the first reference token and the second reference token from the transaction authorizer system in response.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the first and second reference tokens are anonymous such that the second party cannot obtain information about the first payment instruction rule set from the first reference token and such that the first party cannot obtain information about the second payment instruction rule set from the second reference token.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the first and second reference tokens are anonymous such that the second party cannot obtain information about the first party from the first reference token and such that the first party cannot obtain information about the second party from the second reference token.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the first and second payment instruction rule sets each include multiple rules that specify criteria for determining whether to authorize the potential transaction.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein each of the payment instruction rule sets includes multiple of one or more rules regulating types of transactions that the payment instruction rule set is enabled to authorize, of one or more rules regulating types of payment to be received or provided that the payment instruction rule set is enabled to authorize, and of one or more rules regulating types of parties with whom the payment instruction rule set is enabled to authorize transactions.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising, after receiving a second request for a second potential transaction between the first party and the second party, automatically determining to not authorize the second potential transaction based on the first and second payment instruction rule sets being determined to not be compatible for the second potential transaction.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising, after the potential transaction is determined to be authorized and before the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party, obtaining the associated financial payment.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising, after the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services to the first party, obtaining the associated financial payment.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the first party and the second party has multiple distinct payment instruction rule sets that have multiple distinct associated reference tokens, and wherein at least one of the first and second reference tokens are selected by at least one of the first and second parties for use with the potential transaction from multiple available reference tokens.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the facilitating of the providing of the at least one physical products and physical services is performed before the automatic determining that the potential transaction is authorized.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatic determining to authorize the potential transaction based at least in part on the first and second usage instruction rule sets being determined to be compatible includes determining that the rules included in each of the first and second usage instruction rule sets are satisfied for the potential transaction, the determining that the included rules are satisfied including interactively querying at least one of the first party and the second party to obtain additional information.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatic determining to authorize the potential transaction based at least in part on the first and second usage instruction rule sets being determined to be compatible includes determining that the rules included in each of the first and second usage instruction rule sets are satisfied for the potential transaction, the determining that the included rules are satisfied including at least one of interactively querying the first party to obtain confirmation of an automated evaluation of at least one of the rules included in the first usage instruction rule set and of interactively querying the second party to obtain confirmation of an automated evaluation of at least one of the rules included in the second usage instruction rule set.

22. A non-transitory computer-readable medium whose contents configure a computing system to automatically authorize transactions based on predefined instructions, by performing a method comprising:

receiving an indication of a transaction between distinct first and second parties that includes an associated financial payment from the first party to the second party for physically providing at least one of one or more products and of one or more services associated with the transaction;

receiving indications of at least one of a first reference for the first party and of a second reference for the second party, the indicated at least one references being for use in determining whether to authorize the transaction and each having an associated usage instruction rule set;

obtaining an indication from a transaction authorization system distinct from the first and second parties to authorize the transaction based on the associated usage instruction rule set for each of the indicated at least one references being automatically determined to be satisfied; and

providing an indication that the transaction is determined to be authorized, so as to facilitate the transaction.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein the received indications of the at least one references include indications of at least the first reference and of the second reference, the first reference being associated with a first usage instruction rule set and the second reference being associated with a distinct second usage instruction rule set, and wherein the automatic determining by the transaction authorization system includes determining that the first and second usage instruction rule sets are each satisfied for the transaction.

24. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein the method is performed by the first party, and wherein the method further comprises providing the associated financial payment and receiving at least one of one or more physical products and of one or more physical services from the second party.

25. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein the method is performed by the second party, and wherein the method further comprises receiving the associated financial payment and providing at least one of one or more physical products and of one or more physical services to the first party.

26. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein the method is performed by the transaction authorization system, and wherein the providing of the indication that the transaction is determined to be authorized includes providing the indication to at least one of the first and second parties.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein at least one of the first and second references is a reference token that is dynamically generated for use with the transaction and whose associated usage instruction rule set is based at least in part on instructions specified for the transaction.

28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the computing system, and wherein the contents are at least one of instructions that when executed cause the computing system to perform the method and one or more data structures for use in automatically authorizing transactions between parties, the one or more data structures comprising one or more entries that each corresponds to a usage instruction rule set associated with a party and contains an indication of a unique associated reference token and of indications of multiple rules for the usage instruction rule set.

29. A computing device configured to automatically authorize transactions based on predefined instructions, comprising:

one or more processors;

a transaction requester component that is configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, and after receiving one or more indications of a transaction between first and second parties and of a first reference of the first party and a second reference of the second party for use in determining whether to authorize the transaction, automatically obtain a determination as to whether first and second payment instruction rule sets associated with the first and second references are satisfied so as to authorize the transaction, the transaction including the second party providing to the first party functionality related to at least one of one or more physical products and one or more physical services; and

a transaction performer component that is configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, and after the first and second payment instruction rule sets are determined to be satisfied, initiate performance of at least a portion of the transaction.

30. The computing device of claim 29 wherein at least one of the first and second parties each has multiple reference tokens that each has a distinct associated payment instruction rule set, wherein at least one of the first and second references is one of the multiple references tokens that is selected by at least one of the first and second parties for use in authorizing the transaction, and wherein the initiating of the performance of the at least portion of the transaction includes facilitating providing payment by the first party to the second party for the at least one physical products and physical services.

31. The computing device of claim 29 wherein the transaction requester component and the transaction performer component each include software instructions for execution by the one or more processors of the computing device.

32. The computing device of claim 29 wherein the transaction requester component consists of a means for, after receiving one or more indications of a transaction between first and second parties and of a first reference of the first party and a second reference of the second party for use in determining whether to authorize the transaction, automatically obtaining a determination as to whether first and second payment instruction rule sets associated with the first and second references are satisfied so as to authorize the transaction, the transaction including the second party providing to the first party functionality related to the at least one physical products and physical services, and wherein the transaction performer component consists of a means for, after the first and second payment instruction rule sets are determined to be satisfied, initiating performance of at least a portion of the transaction.