Interactive bill payment center

• US 8,103,587 B2
• Filed: 03/28/2011
• Issued: 01/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Yodlee Incorporated (Envestnet Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Yodlee.com, Inc. (Envestnet Incorporated)
• Inventors: Kumar, Srihari, Desai, Satyen, Hayward, Blake Earl, Scott, Jennifer Green, Pandurangan, Senthil Kumar, Kelley, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Cheung, Mary
• Assistant Examiner(s): GREENE, DANIEL LAWSON
• Application Number:
  US13/073,213
• Publication Number:
  US 20110173119A1
• Time in Patent Office: 302 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35, 705/40, 705/42, 705/30, 705/38, 705/39, 705/41, 707/500
• US Class Current: 705/42
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/41 where a single sign-on provides access to a plurality of computers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2119 Authenticating web pages, e.g. with suspicious links
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers

Abstract

A software suite that provides a bill-payment module and comprises an interactive main interface listing bills due and payment accounts, an interactive history link, an interactive set-up link embedded in the main interface, an interactive transfer-funds link an interactive calendar link, a plurality of interactive drop-down menus providing upon invocation a plurality of selectable, interactive options for treating the listed bill and an interactive refresh-all link embedded in the main interface.

Claims

1. A computerized server storing and executing software from memory providing a method for treating personal bills for a user by proxy over a data-packet-network comprising the steps of:

(a) accessing by the user, an interactive bill-payment interface, provided by the software, from a remote node connected to the network, the interface providing a list of a plurality of bills requiring payment;

(b) selecting a listed bill in the interface by the user for a desired treatment;

(c) selecting a treatment option from a list of treatment options associated with the listed bill;

(d) populating a secondary interface presented as a result of selecting a treatment option, the secondary interface comprising an electronic order form for directing the execution of the treatment; and

(e) submitting the completed order form by the user for proxy execution.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (e), proxy execution of the electronic order form is performed by a back-end software, the software capable of proxy navigation to a bill provider connected to the network providing the bill to the user, proxy log-in at the bill provider on behalf of the user, proxy data procurement of the bill, proxy form population, proxy form submission, and return of treatment execution results from the bill provider including calculated and solution-oriented results.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data-packet-network is the Internet network.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein in step (a), the interactive bill-payment interface is a personalized hyper-text-markup-language interface served by a portal server connected to the network.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein in step (a), the remote node is a personal computer at the user'"'"'s premises with accessibility to the network.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein in step (a), the remote node is a cellular telephone with accessibility to the network.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein in step (a), the remote node is a handheld computer with accessibility to the network.

8. The method of claim 4 wherein in step (c), the selected treatment option is any one of an option for bill payment, view payment history, an option for viewing a full itemized account of the bill, and option for marking the bill as paid, and option for deleting the bill, or an option for receiving an alert associated with the bill.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein in step (c), an additional option is presented for obtaining advice regarding the selected treatment option associated with the bill.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein in step (c), the advice includes calculated and solution-oriented results.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein in step (d), the secondary interface comprises a hyper-text-markup-language interface.