Patent Issued for System for incentivizing transition from physical card to mobile pay (USPTO 11699333): United Services Automobile Association

2023 AUG 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Baker, Kelly Q. (San Antonio, TX, US), Chavez, Carlos JP (San Antonio, TX, US), Guerra, Oscar (San Antonio, TX, US), Khmelev, Yevgeniy Viatcheslavovich (San Antonio, TX, US), Matowitz, Theresa Marie (San Antonio, TX, US), Philbrick, Ashley Raine (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on December 6, 2021, was published online on July 11, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11699333 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The present disclosure relates generally to mobile payment systems. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to providing merchants with a variety of options to receive payments when dealing with mobile device payments from clients.

“This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it may be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

“The transition from physical card payments to mobile device payments is rapidly growing. Currently, many merchants accept mobile payments from various types of platforms. For example, merchants are equipped with payment terminals that can accept payments from mobile devices that include applications to tender payment for goods and services. However, some merchants do not have the particular devices to accept the tender. Indeed, certain companies will provide merchants with machines that can accept the tender from the mobile devices, but these machines may involve a certain degree of expertise that may cause merchants to shy away. As such, improved systems for incentivizing the transition from physical card payments to mobile device payments are desirable.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers’ specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

“When introducing elements of various embodiments of the present disclosure, the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Additionally, it should be understood that references to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features.

“As mentioned above, payments systems are rapidly transitioning from physical card payments to payments made via mobile devices. To enable merchants to accept payments via mobile devices, the presently disclosed embodiments detail certain systems and methods for enabling merchants to accommodate the mobile device payment method. In one embodiment, a merchant computing system may receive an indication of payment to a merchant from a mobile device. The merchant computing system may send a notification to a banking computing system, which may enable the merchant to receive the accepted mobile payment in the form of cash from a local automatic teller machine (ATM). Alternatively, the banking computing system may issue payments or a check from a bank for their accumulated payments received via the mobile device.

“By way of introduction, FIG. 1 illustrates a payment system 10 that includes certain components, electronic devices, and a collection of electronic devices that enable different computing systems to perform the methods described herein. As shown in FIG. 1, the payment system 10 may include a merchant computing system 12, client computing system 14, banking computing system 18, and automatic teller machines (ATM) machines 20 that may be communicatively coupled to a network 22. The network 22 may be any suitable computer network that enables different electronic devices (e.g., servers), communication components (e.g., routers), and the like to facilitate the communication between the merchant computing system 12 and other components that may be part of the payment system 10.

“The merchant computing system 12 may be any suitable computing device, which is discussed in more detail below with reference to FIG. 2. In certain embodiments, the merchant computing system 12 may be a mobile phone or smart phone that is equipped with a camera and capable of sending and receiving data over cellular towers, satellites, or other suitable mediums. In another embodiment, the merchant computing system 12 may be a computing device (e.g., a laptop computer, a personal computer, tablet, server, smart phone, and the like), which may also be equipped with a camera or a laser scanner capable of reading one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) images, such as barcodes or quick response (QR) codes.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system, comprising: one or more automatic teller machines (ATMs); and a processor of a merchant computing system, wherein the processor is configured to execute computer-executable instructions that cause the processor to: receive a first indication of a first payment amount from a first computing system associated with a first consumer making a first purchase; send a second indication of a first confirmation of a first acceptance of the first payment amount to the first computing system; receive a third indication of a second payment amount from a second computing system associated with a second consumer making a second purchase; send a fourth indication of a second confirmation of a second acceptance of the second payment amount to the second computing system; send a request for payment of the first payment amount and the second payment amount to a bank computing system, wherein the bank computing system is configured to generate a machine-readable code associated with receiving the first payment amount and the second payment amount via the one or more ATMs, wherein the machine-readable code is configured to cause the one or more ATMs to dispense funds that correspond to the first payment amount and the second payment amount; and receive the machine-readable code from the bank computing system.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to query a banking database to confirm that an account associated with the first computing system includes a threshold amount of funds that is greater than the first payment amount.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable code comprises a dynamically changing quick response (QR) code.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to present an interactive visualization configured to receive one or more inputs related to the first confirmation of the first acceptance, the second confirmation of the second acceptance, or both.

“5. The system of claim 4, wherein the one or more inputs are indicative of one or more changes to the first payment amount, the second payment amount, a first set of parameters associated with the first payment amount, a second set of parameters associated with the second payment amount, or any combination thereof.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the bank computing system is configured to transfer of a value associated with the first payment amount and the second payment amount to a temporary account, wherein the transfer is performed via a distributed ledger.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the first indication and the third indication are received at different times.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the bank computing system is configured to: identify a first ATM of the one or more ATMs based on a location of the processor; and generate the machine-readable code associated with receiving the first payment amount and the second payment amount based on the first ATM, wherein the machine-readable code is configured to cause the first ATM to dispense the funds that corresponds to the first payment amount and the second payment amount.

“9. A method, comprising: receiving, via a processor of a banking computing system, a request for payment of a plurality of payment amounts from a first computing system associated with a merchant, wherein the first computing system is configured to send the request after receiving a plurality of indications of the plurality of payment amounts from a plurality of computing systems associated with a plurality of consumers making a plurality of purchases; receiving, via the processor, a location of the first computing system; identifying, via the processor, one or more automatic teller machines (ATMs) based on the location of the first computing system; generating, via the processor, a machine-readable code configured to cause the one or more ATMs to dispense funds that correspond to the plurality of payment amounts; and sending, via the processor, the machine-readable code to the first computing system.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein the machine-readable code is configured to cause the one or more ATMs to dispense funds that corresponds to the plurality of payment amounts.

“11. The method of claim 9, wherein the location is within a threshold distance of the one or more ATMs.

“12. The method of claim 9, wherein the machine-readable comprises a dynamically changing quick response (QR) code.

“13. The method of claim 9, wherein the machine-readable comprises a dynamically changing bar code.

“14. The method of claim 9, comprising initiating a transfer of a value associated with the plurality of payment amounts to a temporary account, wherein the transfer is performed via a distributed ledger.

“15. The method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of indications is received over a period of time.

“16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a banking computing system, is configured to cause the processor to: receive a request for a single payment of a plurality of payment amounts from a first computing system associated with a merchant, wherein the first computing system is configured to send the request after receiving a plurality of indications of the plurality of payment amounts from a plurality of computing systems associated a plurality of consumers making a plurality of purchases; receive a location of the first computing system; identify one or more automatic teller machines (ATMs) based on the location of the first computing system; generate a machine-readable code configured to cause the one or more ATMs to dispense funds that correspond to the single payment of the plurality of payment amounts; and send the machine-readable code to the first computing system.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable code is configured to cause the one or more ATMs to dispense funds that corresponds to the single payment of the plurality of payment amounts.

“18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the plurality of payment amounts corresponds to the plurality of purchases over a period of time.

“19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the period of time corresponds to one or more hours, one or more days, one or more weeks, or one or more months.

“20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable code comprises a dynamically changing image.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Baker, Kelly Q. System for incentivizing transition from physical card to mobile pay. U.S. Patent Number 11699333, filed December 6, 2021, and published online on July 11, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11699333)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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