Social proximity payments

• US 9,576,284 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2011
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Runyan, William Henry
• Primary Examiner(s): Robinson, Kito R
• Application Number:
  US13/248,836
• Publication Number:
  US 20130085931A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,972 Days
• Field of Search: 705/40
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1057 Benefits or employee welfare, e.g. insurance, holiday or retirement packages
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/322 Aspects of commerce using mobile devices [M-devices]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/325 using wireless networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/326 Payment applications installed on the mobile devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/327 Short range or proximity payments by means of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/384 using social networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/42 Confirmation, e.g. check or permission by the legal debtor of payment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0205 Location or geographical consideration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 : Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 : Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 : Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/12 : Hotels or restaurants
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 : Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 : Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/185 : by embedding added-value information into content, e.g. geo-tagging
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 : for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 : Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

An application or App on a payer'"'"'s mobile device is used to discover people known to the user and who are in close proximity to the user at the time of a payment request. Discovery can be through searching contact lists and/or social networks of the payer and/or through the payer device discovering contacts around the payer and then searching the payer'"'"'s contact or social network list to see if there are any matches. These people are then shown to the user on the user device, such as with a photo, icon, name, and/or email address. The user selects desired ones, which causes requests to be sent to the selected people, such as through text, voice, or email, to the respective devices. The selected people can then easily confirm or authorize a payment be sent to the user or to a payee.

Claims

1. A method for making a payment, comprising:

receiving, by a processor of a payment provider, a request for payment from a user through an application executing on a user device to a payee, wherein the request comprises bill data received by the application using at least one of a camera of the user device with optical character recognition and a digital bill communicated to the user device by a payee device of the payee;

determining, by the processor, a location of the user device using a GPS feature of the user device;

determining a population density of other users at the location of the user device;

determining an event occurring at the location of the user device;

determining a geographic attendance area established for the event that corresponds to attendees of the event;

establishing a proximity radius comprising a specified distance from the location of the user device using the population density and the geographic attendance area;

locating, by the processor, other users within the proximity radius from the location of the user device;

determining, by the processor, identity information of the other users;

causing the user device to provide a visual representation of the other users;

receiving, by the processor from the user device, a selection of desired payers to be requested to make a payment to the payee from the other users presented on the user device;

transmitting, by the processor, a payment request to a payer device of each of the desired payers; and

processing, by the processor, a payment from each of the desired payers to the payee.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual representation is a user image.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

searching through a contact list or one or more social networks for the user; and

determining known users for the user using the contact list or the one or more social networks for the user,

wherein the other users comprise the known users.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the locating of the other users comprises determining the location of a mobile device associated with the other users.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified distance is determined by the payment provider.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the payment from each of the desired payers is to the user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for payment comprises a location of the payee and wherein the location of the user device is determined from the location of the payee.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the identity information comprises at least one of an email address, a phone number, or a name.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified distance is smaller when the population density is dense than when the population density is sparse.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the other users are located within the specified distance using one of near field communication between devices of the other users and the user device and signals emitted from the devices of the other users.

11. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon machine-readable instructions executable to cause a machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving, by a payment provider, a request for payment from a user through a user device to a payee;

determining a location of the user device using a GPS feature of the user device;

determining a population density of other users at the location of the user device;

determining an event occurring at the location of the user device;

determining a geographic attendance area established for the event that corresponds to attendees of the event;

establishing a proximity radius comprising a specified distance from the location of the user device using the population density and the geographic attendance area;

locating other users within the proximity radius from the location of the user device using GPS features of devices of the other users;

determining identity information of the other users;

causing the user device to provide a visual representation of the other users;

receiving, from the user, a selection of desired payers to be requested to make a payment to the payee from the other users presented on the user device;

transmitting a payment request to a payer device of each of the desired payers; and

processing a payment from each of the desired payers to the payee.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the visual representation is a user image.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise:

searching through a contact list or one or more social networks for the user; and

determining known users for the user using the contact list or the one or more social networks for the user,

wherein the other users comprise the known users.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the locating of the other users comprises determining the location of a mobile device associated with the other users.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the specified distance is determined by the payment provider.

16. A system, comprising:

a non-transitory memory storing account information for a plurality of consumers having an account with a payment provider;

one or more hardware processors configured to execute instructions to cause the system to perform operations comprising;

receiving a request for payment from a user through a user device to a payee;

determining a location of the user device using a GPS feature of the user device;

determining a population density of other users at the location of the user device;

determining an event occurring at the location of the user device;

determining a geographic attendance area established for the event that corresponds to attendees of the event;

establishing a proximity radius comprising a specified distance from the location of the user device using the population density and the geographic attendance area;

locate other users within the proximity radius from the location of the user device using GPS features of devices of the other users;

determining identity information of the other users;

causing the user device to provide a visual representation of the other users;

receiving, from the user, a selection of desired payers to be requested to make a payment to the payee from the other users presented on the user device;

transmitting a payment request to a payer device of each of the desired payers; and

processing a payment from each of the desired payers to the payee, based in part on the account information.