Email payment gateway for e-commerce

• US 9,704,148 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2013
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Swoop IP Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: @Pay IP Holdings LLC
• Inventors: Killoran, Jr., John P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Kira
• Application Number:
  US13/800,371
• Publication Number:
  US 20140032398A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,581 Days
• Field of Search: 705329, 705 39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/027 involving a payment switch or gateway
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/22 Payment schemes or models
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3276 using a pictured code, e.g. barcode or QR-code, being read by the M-device
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

An email payment gateway may be configured to send emails to customers, including a plurality of mailto hyperlinks. Each mailto hyperlink may be in the form of a graphical user interface button associated with one or more products. Each button generates a return email message when the button is selected. The generated email message may include one or more parameters related to the one or more products associated with the button, such as an identifier of the product, vendor or particular campaign with which the product is associated. The generated email message may then be transmitted to the email payment gateway. The email payment gateway may receive the message and, based on the parameters in the received message, process payment to complete the customer'"'"'s purchase of the selected product.

Claims

1. An email payment gateway utilizing simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) and an exchange of SMTP emails, the email payment gateway comprising:

a database configured to store a plurality of identifiers including an identifier of a customer, payment information of the customer, an email address of the customer and an identifier of an email marketing campaign;

a security module for generating a plurality of universal unique identifiers (UUIDs), the security module associating one of said plurality of UUIDs with each of said plurality of identifiers;

at least one processor configured to generate a first SMTP email message addressed to the email address of the customer and associated with the email campaign;

the first SMTP email message including a visible SMTP mailto link, wherein the visible SMTP mailto link includes;

non visible information including a destination address field that includes an email address of the email payment gateway, a first UUID that is associated with a product and a second UUID that is associated with identification of the customer, and an email body field that includes the identifier of the customer, an identifier of a product, and the identifier of the email campaign, wherein the visible mailto link is configured to, upon selection, generate a second SMTP email message, by a customer device, that includes said first and second UUIDs;

a network interface configured to transmit the first SMTP email message to the customer;

the network interface further configured to receive the second SMTP email message from the customer, the second SMTP email including the first and second UUIDs;

wherein the second SMTP email message is automatically generated in response to the customer executing the visible SMTP mailto link of the first SMTP email message; and

the at least one processor is further configured to process said first UUID to derive the product and the second UUID to derive the customer, and to process the purchase only if the first and second UUIDs are valid, on a condition of receiving the second SMTP email message from the customer device.

2. The email payment gateway of claim 1, wherein the first SMTP email message includes a plurality of mail to links corresponding to a plurality of products.

3. The email payment gateway of claim 2, wherein each of the plurality of mailto links is associated with a non-visible UUID.

4. The email payment gateway of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to look up said first and second UUIDs stored on a database to determine a product selected for purchase and an identity of the customer.

5. The email payment gateway of claim 1 further comprising a purchase fulfillment system.

6. The email payment gateway of claim 5, wherein the purchase fulfillment system is configured to generate an electronic notice regarding the purchase of a selected product.

7. The email payment gateway of claim 6, wherein the electronic notice is at least one of an SMTP email blast, message sent using Twitter, and posting on a website associated with the email payment gateway.