Patent Application
20060136901
Mobile electronic commerce is a rapidly developing application that allows users to pay for goods and/or services using portable wireless devices such as mobile phones. The basic concept calls for the portable wireless device to be provisioned with “currency”. The currency can be a link to a credit card account, a bank account, or the like. The portable wireless device would then use short range RF, Bluetooth™ or IR technologies to communicate with a vendor's point-of-sale (POS) device to conduct a transaction. Transactions can include virtually anything from paying for gas at a filling station, settling a check at a restaurant, to purchasing a hot dog at a baseball game.
Many people also use some type of financial software application to keep track of various personal financial issues. Some of these include account balance information, home budget information, and portfolio status information. The financial software application is typically resident on and executed from a personal computer. In addition, the financial software manufacturer often maintains a secure web-site for customer use that allows a customer to upload and securely post personal financial data. This allows the user to access their personal financial data from somewhere other than their home personal computer.
While the financial software application is adept at tracking and monitoring specific financial data, the data itself still needs to be input into the software. Sometimes data can be input from other sources using an import feature. The import feature typically allows for wholesale importation of data into the financial application software provided it is formatted appropriately. Other data can be manually input through a graphical user interface (GUI) that acts as an interface between the user and the financial application software. Manual input is very often a laborious and tedious process that is prone to human error.
If a portable wireless device mobile e-commerce user is also a person that utilizes a financial software application to track and monitor financial data, then the transactions conducted on the portable wireless device need to be entered into and recorded by the financial software application. Currently this entails waiting until the user has direct access to his personal computer and manually entering the transactions into the financial software application.
What is needed is a means for automatically recording transaction data in a local copy of the user's financial database that resides on a wireless device and then transmitting the transaction data from a remote location, (if necessary) to a financial software application without having to manually enter the transactions into the financial software application.
The present invention describes a method, system, and computer program product for exchanging personal financial data between a portable wireless device running a mobile financial application software program and a master financial application software program residing on a separate computer. The mobile financial application software program stores mobile e-commerce transactions conducted on the portable wireless device. The mobile financial application software program establishes a connection with the master financial application software program either automatically or upon user initiation. Once a connection is established, financial data is exchanged between the mobile financial application software program and the master financial application software program thereby keeping the mobile and master financial applications synchronized and up to date.
The connection between the mobile financial application software program and the master financial application software program includes a wireless network and a can also include a wired network such as the Internet. Alternatively, the connection between the mobile financial application software program and the master financial application software program can be a direct connection that does not include a network such as Bluetooth™, 802.11x, Ir, or cable such as RS232 or USB.
There are multiple communication paths for exchanging financial data between the financial software application 115 on the portable wireless device 110 and the financial software application 145 on the personal computer 140. One path would allow the portable wireless device 110 to communicate with the home personal computer 140 via base station 135 and network 130 using an “always on” network connection, preferably broadband. Another path would use the financial application server 155 maintained by the financial software application manufacturer as an intermediary between the portable wireless device 110 and home personal computer 140.
If the portable wireless device 110 is in close proximity to the home personal computer 140, then a direct connection between the portable wireless device 110 and the home personal computer 140 can be set up via a Bluetooth™ RF connection, an IR connection, or a cabled connection like USB. With one of these connections, data can be exchanged directly from portable wireless device 110 to home personal computer 140 and vice versa.
The portable wireless device 110 is also communicable with a variety of service or goods providers 105. The service or goods providers are equipped to conduct an e-commerce transaction with the portable wireless device 110. An e-commerce transaction is one which is achieved wirelessly between the portable wireless device 110 and a service or goods providers 105 such that no actual physical contact (credit or bank card swipe) or exchange of currency is required.
The mobile device compares the financial transaction record with a history of transactions stored in the mobile's financial database and can determine a budget category for the transaction based on information such as the payee, item description, and cost. This information is displayed to the user who is given the option to record the transaction, change the budget category, or not record the transaction. The user can select a setting so that transactions are automatically categorized and recorded without prompting the user. The financial transaction record is formatted to be compatible with a master financial application that resides on a host computer elsewhere (typically a home personal computer).
The mobile financial application can be configured to link or connect to the master financial application 230 for purposes of exchanging data with one another. Once a link or connection has been established, data between the mobile and master financial applications can be exchanged 240. The process of exchanging information 240 is typically referred to as “synchronizing” the data.
Data synchronization can be a scheduled event that takes place automatically or a manual event that occurs upon user initiation. In addition, the user has control over the type of data to be synchronized and the frequency of synchronization. For instance, the user can program the mobile financial application to synchronize with the master financial application on a daily basis in order to “upload” the day's mobile e-commerce transactions to the master financial application. Data types could include bank transactions, credit card transactions, portfolio updates, etc.
Specific embodiments of an invention are disclosed herein. One of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that the invention may have other applications in other environments. In fact, many embodiments and implementations are possible. The following claims are in no way intended to limit the scope of the present invention to the specific embodiments described above. In addition, any recitation of “means for” is intended to evoke a means-plus-function reading of an element and a claim, whereas, any elements that do not specifically use the recitation “means for”, are not intended to be read as means-plus-function elements, even if the claim otherwise includes the word “means”.
