1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is credit transaction processing, or, more specifically, methods, systems, and products for administration of credit card transaction authority.
2. Description of Related Art
Prior art systems have allowed available credit for a credit account to be determined by someone other than the card issuer and allowed limits to be set on the number of expenditures that can be made. Prior art systems have allowed parents to control the use of ancillary credit or debit transaction cards issued to children. Prior art included administration by use of cards of prepaid amounts for certain categories of goods and services. Prior art included so-called ‘smart cards’ having some computational ability installed upon the cards, although the computational ability was generally limited in use to credit amount verification and security checks to validate the identity of a card or account user. Prior art card methods and systems, however, lacked the ability to authorize transactions based upon indications of user preference. Prior art methods and systems lacked the ability to categorize goods and services according to content so as to support authorization based upon such content.
Consider, for the sake of illustration, the case of cash. When an employer hands cash to an employee for use in purchasing office supplies, there is within the cash absolutely no functional limitation restricting purchases to office supplies. The employer may have internal controls and administrative procedures designed to assure that expenditures are limited to intended purposes, but the cash itself in fact can be spent on anything. In fact, prior art credit account administration is very similar to the case of cash.
In fashion very similar to cash, typical prior art credit card accounts have no functional or substantive limitations whatsoever. Prior art credit card accounts have credit maxima, but credit maxima, except for the obvious amount limitation, have no effect on what can be purchased with a credit card. When a parent authorizes a prior art credit card for a child, therefore, the parent has absolutely no way within the credit card or the credit card account itself to control expenditures using the card. Parents no doubt have many practical prior art ways of controlling the spending behavior of children, but none of those ways are implemented through the prior art credit cards as such. Accordingly therefore, there is a real need in the art for systems and methods in which the use of credit accounts is authorized according to the preferences of account owners and the content of goods and services, so that owners of credit card accounts and other credit accounts can implement expenditure controls within the account arrangements themselves.
Embodiments of the invention include methods for administration of credit account transaction authority including receiving a request for authorization for a credit transaction against a credit account for purchase of at least one item available for purchase through credit transactions, wherein the item available for purchase has a content rating, and wherein the credit account has a content rating, an account owner, and at least one authorized account user. Embodiments include comparing the content rating of the item requested for purchase and the content rating of the credit account, wherein the comparing produces a determination whether the content rating of the item requested for purchase matches the content rating of the credit account. Embodiments include authorizing the requested transaction when the content rating of the item requested for purchase matches the content rating of the credit account.
Typical embodiments of the invention include retrieving, from a ratings repository or a credit card company, the content rating of the credit account. Typical embodiments of the invention also include account owners having preferences regarding the content rating of the credit account and assigning the content rating to the credit account in dependence upon the account owner's preferences. Assigning a content rating in typical embodiments includes editing by the account owner of the content rating of the credit account and editing by the account owner of the content rating of the credit account on-line through a web site of a credit card company. In many embodiments, the credit account is a credit card account.
Further embodiments of the invention comprise content ratings including several content categories, each category having its own values. In typical embodiments, the content rating includes a primary content label having primary content values, a secondary content label having secondary content values, and a content descriptor having content descriptor values. Typical embodiments comprise a content rating including a maximum value for a credit account transaction, a timing code indicating when credit account transactions are enabled, a governmental restriction having governmental restriction values, and a merchant rating having merchant rating values. Content ratings in many embodiments also include an age category indicating the minimum age requirements for authorized account users.
In addition to the method aspects of the invention, further aspects of the invention include embodiments as computer systems and computer program products. The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular descriptions of exemplary embodiments of the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings wherein like reference numbers generally represent like parts of exemplary embodiments of the invention.
The present invention is described to a large extent in this specification in terms of methods for credit transaction processing, or, more specifically, methods, systems, and products for administration of credit card transaction authority. Persons skilled in the art, however, will recognize that any computer system that includes suitable programming means for operating in accordance with the disclosed methods also falls well within the scope of the present invention.
Suitable programming means include any means for directing a computer system to execute the steps of the method of the invention, including for example, systems comprised of processing units and arithmetic-logic circuits coupled to computer memory, which systems have the capability of storing in computer memory data elements and programmed steps of the method of the invention for execution by a processing unit as computer program instructions, which computer memory includes electronic circuits configured to store data and program instructions. The invention also is embodied in a computer program product, such as a diskette or other recording medium, for use with any suitable data processing system.
Embodiments of a computer program product typically are implemented by use of any recording media for machine-readable information, including magnetic media, optical media, or other suitable media. Persons skilled in the art will immediately recognize that any computer system having suitable programming means will be capable of executing the steps of the method of the invention as embodied in a program product. Persons skilled in the art will recognize immediately that, although most of the exemplary embodiments described in this specification are oriented to software installed and executing on computer hardware, nevertheless, alternative embodiments implemented as firmware or as hardware are well within the scope of the present invention.
In this specification, the terms “field,” “data element,” and “attribute” are used as synonyms, referring to individual elements of digital data. Aggregates of data elements are referred to as “records” or “data structures.” Definitions of complex data structures that include member methods, functions, or software routines in addition to data elements are referred to as “classes.” Instances of complex data structures are referred to as “objects” or “class objects.”
The terms “client,” “client device,” and “device” are used as synonyms in this specification, referring to any device capable of accessing a server through a network. Examples of client devices are personal computers, special purpose devices that are internet-enabled, internet-capable personal data organizers, and others that will occur to those of skill in the art. Various embodiments of client devices are capable of wired and/or wireless network access. The use as a client device of any instrument capable of accessing a server through a network is well within the present invention.
A “browser” is a software application typically installed and running upon a client device, the browser operating to download to the client device from a web server documents developed in a markup language, display the contents of the documents, and to the extent that the documents include tags identifying other documents to download or other actions to be taken, downloading the documents or taking the actions.
“Coupled for data communications” means any form of data communications, wireless, infrared, radio, internet protocols, HTTP protocols, email protocols, networked, direct connections, dedicated phone lines, dial-ups, and other forms of data communications as will occur to those of skill in the art.
The term “network” is used in this specification to mean any networked coupling for data communications. Examples of networks useful with the invention include intranets, extranets, internets, local area networks, wide area networks, and other network arrangements as will occur to those of skill in the art. The use of any networked coupling from client devices to one or more content servers is well within the scope of the present invention.
“World Wide Web,” or more simply “the web,” refers to the well-known system of internet protocol (“IP”) servers that support specially formatted documents, documents formatted in a language called HTML for HyperText Markup Language. The term “web” is used in this specification also to refer to any server or connected group or interconnected groups of servers that implement the HyperText Transport Protocol, “HTTP,” in support of URLs and HTML documents, regardless whether such servers or groups of servers are coupled to the world wide web as such.
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In typical embodiments of the invention, the method also includes a content rating (302) which includes a governmental restriction (324) having governmental restriction values. In typical embodiments, the governmental restriction values include a minimum age for purchase of alcoholic beverages, an indication of a confirmation requirement for purchase of handguns, or a minimum age requirement for purchase of cigarettes. Those values are examples only. Many useful governmental restriction values will occur to those of skill in the art, and all such values are well within the scope of the present invention.
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The scope of the invention is in no way limited by the particular elements of content ratings discussed in this specification. Additional embodiments include, for example, content ratings fields for drugs, to prevent accidental acquisition by account users of drugs dangerous in combination, useful for both prescription drugs and nonprescription drugs. Other embodiments include, for example, content ratings on automobile fuels, to prevent accidental acquisition of fuels that will not work properly in an account user's automobile. Other embodiments include, for example, content ratings on electronic products such as video and audio programs and software applications, updates, and upgrades, available for purchase and download across the Internet, to prevent accidental acquisition of electronic products that will not work correctly on a particular account user's computer. Many other embodiments of content ratings will occur to those of skill in the art, and all of them are well within the scope of the present invention.
It will be understood from the foregoing description that various modifications and changes may be made in the various embodiments of the present invention without departing from its true spirit. It is intended that the descriptions in this specification are for purposes of illustration only and are not to be construed in a limiting sense. The scope of the present invention is limited only by the language of the following claims.
This application is a continuation application of and claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/956,768 filed on Sep. 6, 2001.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 09956768 | Sep 2001 | US |
Child | 11772559 | Jul 2007 | US |