Anonymous purchases while allowing verifiable identities for refunds returned along the paths taken to make the purchases

US7257554B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P. · US

Inventors

• Steven C. Glassman · Mountain View, US
• Mark Manasse · San Francisco, US
• John William Court · Gold Coast, AU
• Edmund James Grohn · Chatswood, AU
• Andrew Palka · Reading, GB
• Nigel Norris · Reading, GB

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 19, 1999
• Grant date: Aug 14, 2007
• Expiry date: Mar 19, 2019

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06Q40/00
• WIPO field: IT methods for management
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

An electronic commerce system and method has a number of computer systems connected by a network, including a broker computer system having a database of scrips representing a form of currency, a vendor computer system having a database containing products which may be exchanged for the scrips, and a consumer computer system with which a user may initiate transactions to obtain the products contained in the database of the vendor computer system in return for scrip. The broker issues scrip to the consumer having a Customer ID including a Hash subfield containing a value produced by consumer identifying information hashed with a nonce. When the scrip is exchanged for additional scrip, the value in the Hash subfield is hashed with another nonce. The consumer stores the nonces used to produce the Hash subfield in a wallet. If a vendor issuing a refund for scrip wishes to verify the identity of the consumer, the consumer provides the vendor with the identifying information and the chain of nonces used to produce the value of the Hash subfield. The vendor recreates the value of the Hash Subfield to verify the identifying information. Then, the vendor issues a refund coupon having the sa…