Systems and methods for decoding card swipe signals
First Claim
1. A decoding system, comprising:
- a decoding engine running on a mobile device, the decoding engine in operation decoding signals produced from a read of a buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card, the decoding engine in operation accepting and initializing incoming signals from the read of the buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card until the signals reach a steady state, detecting the read of the buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card once the incoming signals are in a steady state, identifying peaks in the incoming signals and digitizing the identified peaks in the incoming signals into bits;
anda transaction engine running on the mobile device and coupled to the decoding engine, the transaction engine in operation receiving as its input decoded buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card information from the decoding engine and serving as an intermediary between the buyer and a merchant, so that the buyer does not have to share his/her financial transaction card information with the merchant.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods to enable an individual to complete a financial transaction by swiping a magnetic stripe card through a card reader connected to a mobile device. The size of the card reader is miniaturized to be portable for connection with the mobile device. The card reader is configured to reliably read data encoded in a magnetic strip of the card with minimum error in a single swipe and provide a signal that corresponds to the data read to the mobile device, which then decodes the incoming signal from the card reader and acts as a point-of-sale device to complete the financial transaction. Such an approach enables a person to become either a micro-merchant (payee) or a buyer/customer (payer) without having to purchase expensive card reader devices or software.
223 Citations
28 Claims
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1. A decoding system, comprising:
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a decoding engine running on a mobile device, the decoding engine in operation decoding signals produced from a read of a buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card, the decoding engine in operation accepting and initializing incoming signals from the read of the buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card until the signals reach a steady state, detecting the read of the buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card once the incoming signals are in a steady state, identifying peaks in the incoming signals and digitizing the identified peaks in the incoming signals into bits; and a transaction engine running on the mobile device and coupled to the decoding engine, the transaction engine in operation receiving as its input decoded buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card information from the decoding engine and serving as an intermediary between the buyer and a merchant, so that the buyer does not have to share his/her financial transaction card information with the merchant. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A processor-implemented decoding method, comprising:
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accepting and initializing incoming signals read from a read of a buyer'"'"'s financial transaction card until the signals reach a steady state at a mobile device; detecting presence of the swipe read once the incoming signals are in a steady state; identifying peaks in the incoming signals once the presence of the read is detected; digitizing the identified peaks in the incoming signals into bits; converting the digitized bits into buyer'"'"'s financial card information; and running a transaction on the mobile device, the transaction engine taking as its input decoded card information from the decoding engine and a transaction amount from the user interaction engine, the transaction engine serving as an intermediary between the buyer and the merchant, so that the buyer does not have to share his/her financial transaction card information with the merchant. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification