Patent Issued for Systems and methods for online payment transactions (USPTO 11288642): United Services Automobile Association

2022 APR 18 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States) has been issued patent number 11288642, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Haslam, Justin D. (San Antonio, TX, US), Hawes, Brian C. (San Antonio, TX, US), Williams, Christian A. (San Antonio, TX, US).

This patent was filed on June 22, 2018 and was published online on March 29, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “With the advent of electronic commerce, consumers can buy products or services from any merchant web store. Merchants of goods and services often enhance their business and increase clientele by accepting diverse forms of payments. For online shopping, electronic payment techniques are allowed where a business merchant is provided with information about a transfer of money before the merchant can provide the items to be delivered. For instance, when a consumer shops at a merchant’s web store, after placing an order online, the consumer will also need to enter online payment information, which is normally done by filling out a payment form that requires payment card number and certain payment card supporting information. In some cases, in order to make payments for items being shopped on a merchant web store, a consumer may have to open an account with a merchant web site and provide bank account or payment card details for making any transactions on the merchant web store.

“In some instances, customers are often presented with bills via an email for goods and services purchased from multiple merchants and service providers. Payment for many such goods and services may be made on a periodic basis or one-time transactions. Customers typically pay recurring bills and other bills received via an email by opening an account on merchant and service provider web sites. Customers may be required to provide bank account or payment card details while opening their account on the merchant and service provider web sites for paying the bills received via email on the merchants and service provider web sites.

“Currently available online bill payment systems that require inputting financial information (e.g., bank account numbers, routing number), and in some cases, identification verifications (e.g., social security, home address) may subject the customers to an increased security risk. For instance, one potential risk occurs where user account related data (e.g., email addresses and passwords) at a merchant web site is hacked, and the hacker is able to obtain the user’s financial and payment transaction data (e.g., credit card number) from the merchant web site. Another potential risk may occur where a merchant server is hacked and user’s financial and personal data is stolen by hackers for possible misuse.

“Furthermore, conventional payment systems require users to either remember all the payment information or obtain the payment information from another source (e.g., electronic wallet or another website, such as the user’s bank website). As expected, this creates a negative user experience because users are required to have multiple browsers open. Managing these browsers, corresponding to payment information and online shopping, may be difficult, especially when dealing with smaller display screens, such as mobile devices.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “For the aforementioned reasons, there is a need to reduce the risk associated with online payments. There is also a need for allowing the users to conduct online shopping without being required to visit multiple online sources (e.g., multiple payment information websites, budgeting sites, and electronic wallets having payment information) and without having the burden of managing multiple browsers at the same time.

“Disclosed herein are systems and methods capable of addressing the above-described shortcomings and may provide any number of additional or alternative benefits and advantages. As described herein, embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems, apparatuses, methods, and computer program products for performing online payment transactions from any web page being accessed on a client device by automatically generating a payment application icon on the web page through which a user can make payments or retrieve additional account information. The content of a web page may be analyzed to determine if a payment application icon is needed on the web page. If the payment application icon is needed, details of a payment application icon needed for the web page is determined based on the content of the web page. A request is then issued to an executable file of a client device to generate a payment application icon on the web page, and the payment application icon generated by the executable file is displayed on the web page from which a user can make payments. Selection of the payment application icon causes a window to display to enable a payment or receive additional information.

“In some embodiments, monitoring, by an application executing on a client device, a webpage displayed on a browser application of the client device by periodically executing a data scraping protocol and identifying a set of alphanumeric characters on the webpage, wherein the application is executed in a background while a user is operating the browser application of the client device; in response to a string of characters within the set of alphanumeric characters matching one or more pre-defined keywords, determining, by the client device executing the application, whether the webpage represents a payment request; and in response to determining that the webpage represents the payment request, rendering, by the client device executing the application, a payment icon on the webpage in the browser application; and in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, displaying, by the client device executing the application, a payment prompt comprising: one or more payment data input fields associated with the user, the one or more payment data input fields configured to receive payment data associated with an account of the user; and an interactive hyperlink configured to cause a payment server to transmit a payment from an account of the user to a recipient identified within the webpage, whereby the payment server transmits the payment from the account of the user to another account associated with the webpage based on payment data.

“In some embodiments, a system may include a client device configured to execute an application configured to a client device configured to execute an application configured to: monitor a webpage displayed on a browser application of the client device by periodically executing a data scraping protocol and identifying a set of alphanumeric characters on the webpage, wherein the application is executed in a background while a user is operating the browser application of the client device; in response to a string of characters within the set of alphanumeric characters matching one or more pre-defined keywords, determine whether the webpage represents a payment request; and in response to determining that the webpage represents the payment request, render a payment icon on the webpage in the browser application; and in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, display a payment prompt comprising: one or more payment data input fields associated with the user, the one or more payment data input fields configured to receive payment data associated with an account of the user; and an interactive hyperlink configured to cause a payment server to transmit a payment from an account of the user to a recipient identified within the webpage, whereby the payment server transmits the payment from the account of the user to another account associated with the webpage based on payment data.

“Numerous other aspects, features and benefits of the present disclosure may be made apparent from the following detailed description taken together with the drawing figures.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method executed by at least one processor, the method comprising: monitoring, by an application executing on a client device, a webpage displayed on a browser application of the client device by periodically executing a data scraping protocol, wherein the application is executed in a background while a user is operating the browser application of the client device; determining, by the application, that the webpage displays a set of keywords associated with a payment transaction; in response to determining that the webpage displays the set of keywords associated with the payment transaction, dynamically rendering, by the application, a payment icon on the webpage in the browser application associated with a payment company or bank at which the user has an account; and in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon: displaying, by the application, a payment prompt comprising one or more payment data input fields associated with the user, one or more authentication data input fields, and an interactive hyperlink configured to cause a payment server to transmit a payment from the account of the user to a recipient identified within the webpage; pre-filling, by the application, the one or more payment data input fields with payment data associated with the payment transaction, the account of the user, or both; receiving, by the application, biometric authentication data; authenticating, by the application, the user using the biometric authentication data; in response to authenticating the user, pre-populating, by the application, the one or more authentication data input fields with dynamic payment authentication data, wherein the dynamic payment authentication data is dynamically changed over pre-determined time periods; receiving, by the application, an indication to cause the payment server to transmit the payment from the account of the user to the recipient via the interactive hyperlink; authenticating, by the application, the dynamic payment authentication data; and in response to authenticating the dynamic payment authentication data, causing, by the application, the payment server to transmit the payment from the account of the user to the recipient, whereby the payment server transmits the payment from the account of the user to another account associated with the webpage based on payment data.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising, in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, displaying, by the application, one or more items on the payment prompt, wherein the application determines the one or more items based on a user profile containing data corresponding to the webpage.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the one or more items comprises a budget amount, a list of previously purchased products, a list of recommended products, a list of membership points, and a list of reward purchase options.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising, in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, displaying, by the application, a numerical data string on the payment prompt for payment of value within the one or more payment data input fields.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, comprising, in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, displaying, by the application, the payment prompt on the webpage as a pop-up window, a new window, or in any visually perceptible format.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of keywords comprises a decimal point, dollar sign, or both.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of keywords corresponds to descriptors that define a transaction.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of keywords comprises “total”, “subtotal”, “order total”, “product total”, “total amount”, “final amount”, “total balance”, and “current balance”.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising determining, by the application, the webpage on the client device by tracking one or more of browser cookies, IP addresses, and information embedded in a uniform resource locator (URL) address.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising utilizing, by the application, web crawlers to crawl various web sites associated with user membership accounts to retrieve identification data of the various web sites.

“11. A system comprising: a server configured to manage an account of a user; and a client device communicatively coupled to the server, the client device configured to execute an application configured to: monitor a webpage displayed on a browser application of the client device by periodically executing a data scraping protocol, wherein the application is executed in a background while the user is operating the browser application of the client device; determine, by the application, that the webpage displays a set of keywords associated with a payment transaction; in response to determining that the webpage displays the set of keywords associated with a payment transaction, dynamically render a payment icon on the webpage in the browser application; and in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon: display a payment prompt comprising one or more payment data input fields associated with the user, the one or more payment data input fields configured to receive payment data associated with the account of the user, one or more authentication data input fields, and an interactive hyperlink configured to cause a payment server to transmit a payment from the account of the user to a recipient identified within the webpage, whereby the payment server transmits the payment from the account of the user to another account associated with the webpage based on payment data; pre-fill, by the application, the one or more payment data input fields with payment data associated with the payment transaction, the account of the user, or both; pre-populate, by the application, the one or more authentication data input fields with dynamic payment authentication data, wherein the dynamic payment authentication data is dynamically changed over pre-determined time periods by providing different combinations of the dynamic payment authentication data based on a pre-determined time algorithm, randomly generating the dynamic payment authentication data via a cryptographic algorithm, or both; receive, by the application, an indication to cause the payment server to transmit the payment from the account of the user to the recipient via the interactive hyperlink; authenticate, by the application, the dynamic payment authentication data; and in response to authenticating the dynamic payment authentication data, cause, by the application, the payment server to transmit the payment from the account of the user to the recipient, whereby the payment server transmits the payment from the account of the user to another account associated with the webpage based on payment data.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the application is configured to display, in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, one or more items on the payment prompt, wherein the application determines the one or more items based on a user profile containing data corresponding to the webpage.

“13. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more items comprises a budget amount, a list of previously purchased products, a list of recommended products, a list of membership points, and a list of reward purchase options.

“14. The system of claim 11, wherein the application is configured to display, in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, a numerical data string on the payment prompt for payment of value within the one or more payment data input fields.

“15. The system of claim 12, wherein the application is configured to display, in response to receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the payment icon, the payment prompt on the webpage as a pop-up window, a new window, or in any visually perceptible format.

“16. The system of claim 11, wherein set of keywords comprises a decimal point, a dollar sign, or both.

“17. The system of claim 11, wherein the application is configured to determine the webpage on the client device by tracking one or more of browser cookies, IP addresses, and information embedded in a uniform resource locator (URL) address.

“18. The system of claim 11, wherein the application is configured to utilize web crawlers to crawl various web sites associated with user membership accounts to retrieve identification data of the various web sites.

“19. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising, in response to authenticating the dynamic payment authentication data, determining that the user has a shared budget with a second user, and transmitting, by the application, a notification to a computing device associated with the second user regarding the payment.

“20. The system of claim 13, wherein the server is configured to determine the budget amount based on the user’s income information, spending power, age, education, or any combination thereof.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Haslam, Justin D. Systems and methods for online payment transactions. U.S. Patent Number 11288642, filed June 22, 2018, and published online on March 29, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11288642.PN.&OS=PN/11288642RS=PN/11288642

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