EP1228492A1

EP1228492A1 - Method for securing trade

Info

Publication number: EP1228492A1
Application number: EP00951568A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Jarkko Valtanen
Original assignee: Moom Solutions Ltd Oy
Current assignee: OY MOOM SOLUTIONS LTD
Priority date: 1999-11-03
Filing date: 2000-08-10
Publication date: 2002-08-07
Also published as: FI19992370A; WO2001033519A1; AU6446400A

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for securing trade. A customer establishes a data communication contact with a server, which is at least in a data transmitting connection with a service supplier. After the data transmitting connection has been established, selects, confirms and/or makes a payment for his/her acquisition, such as buying a product, a service and/or a gambling contract. The server, if necessary after verification of e.g. personal, communication and/or credit information, confirms that the purchase transaction has been conducted correctly and drafts an electronic substitute. Transmitting or selling of the electronic substitute is carried out through the server.

Description

Method for securing trade

The invention relates to a method for securing trade, wherein a customer establishes a data communication contact with a server, which is at least in a data transmitting connection with a service supplier, whereafter, after the connection has been established, selects, confirms and/or makes a payment for his/her acquisition, such as buying a product, a service and/or a gambling contract, whereafter the server, if necessary after verification of e.g. personal, communications and/or credit information, furthermore confirms, that the purchase transaction has been conducted correctly, and drafts an electronic substi- tute, giving right to the acquisition corresponding to the purchase transaction and that is being transmitted and stored in an electronic memory owned by the customer, preferably in a format being treated by concealing system, such as being encrypted, particu- larly in order to secure authenticity of the trade.

The type of principle described above is working nowadays in ticket sales e.g. for various traffic companies or e.g. service suppliers organizing enter- tainment events, whereby the customer may establish a contact by his/her personal computer over the internet with the server of a service supplier and in this connection reserve, pay and, on the other hand, also receive a receipt giving right to the actual ticket . At present, the actual exploitation of an actual service being bought, such as a ticket enabling admission to an entertainment event, requires however that the customer goes and picks up the reserved ticket in advance. A crucial drawback in this type of activity is the fact that the customer must first of all go and pick up the actual ticket and second of all that the service supplier must alternatively either mail the ticket to a customer or, on the other hand, keep queuing even those customers who have reserved a ticket in advance, which is why the quality of customer service suffers unreasonably merely as a result of two-stage ticket sales.

From the prior art furthermore FI 973788 (G 07F 7/10) may be mentioned, in which an electronic payment system has been described. In the payment system determined by the publication, the buyer gets an electronic receipt from the seller as a proof of the commercial transaction, which he may store in his/her portable media of communication acting as an electronic wallet or send it forward to separate locations for further treatment .

On the other hand in a Finnish patent application No. 990641, named "Method for improving the efficiency of trade", there has been presented a remarkable improvement in comparison with prior art in such respect, that as the customer's data processor, a portable communicator is proposed to be used, that is capable of establishing telecommunications, into which the substitute being formed by the server during the communication and being equipped advantageously with a customer-specific identifier, is being transmitted, in order to store the substitute into the memory of the customer's communicator in electronic form. In this case the principle is furthermore such, that the customer may without other extra measures exploit as such the electronic substitute being received, when redeeming the purchase being acquired e.g. by means of a wireless contact between his/her own communication device and the service supplier's automatic reading device .

In this connection a need for securing trade has been found however particularly from such point of view, that first of all not any kind of direct malpractice by copying of electronic substitutes, such as tickets or like may occur, and/or on the other hand considering such an occasion, that the original ticket receiver would like to transmit his/her acquisition for some reason to an other person. Indisputable evidence of a correctly conducted purchase transaction is impossible also when using electronic substitutes, in case in question several identical copies of the substitute are put on circulation, because in such a situation each of these copies might act as a proof of a correctly conducted purchase transaction. When keeping in mind e.g. sales of ticket, this would have such consequence, that owners of all identical ticket copies would each be justified in redeeming the service entitled by the ticket. This is why there is a need for such an arrangement, that also the type of electronic substitutes above must be protected considering particularly copying in a way, that there exists only one valid version of each transmitted substitute.

Two main problems are related to substitutes particularly being transmitted/exploited electronically, the first one of which is such, that an electronic code belonging to the same may be changed usually rather easily so, that no traces of the change will be left in the code in question, and the second one is such, that the substitute in question may be copied so, that no traces of copying will be left therein either. A solution to the first problem above is nowadays e.g. encrypting, whereby the identification code of an electronic substitute, such as a ticket, may be protected by using a so called encrypting key in a way, that only the owner of the key (in practice e.g. the service supplier) may always be confirmed, that the ticket in question has not being changed without permission. To the latter problem there is not any reliable solution to be found nowadays, that couldn't get passed. There has been efforts to prevent copying e.g. of digital codes, such as of music recordings or files by using methods based on hardware and/or software, which ways of protecting have, however, always been able to brake in a way, that generally taken copying of digital code may not be prevented reliably nowadays .

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method which offers a decisive improvement regarding the above problems and, thus, to substantially raise the available prior art . In order to achieve this object, a method of the invention is principally characterized in that transmitting or selling of the electronic substitute, giving right to the acquisition, such as a product, a service and/or a gambling contract, to the next customer is being carried out through the server, whereby the customer establishes a contact with the same for the above purpose, whereby the server modifies the substitute and updates its own system at least for the part of the modifications being done to the substitute, in order to transmit the modified substitute furthermore to the next customer.

The method according to the invention provides an essential benefit in terms of simplicity and reliability of its operating principle, in which case reliability of electronic trade may be secured in practice in most heterogeneous connections and for a multitude of purposes. In this connection the main principle of the electronic substitutes in question is furthermore such, that an electronic substitute being transmitted to the customer, will always be verified before exploitation of the same, in which respect the invention enables thus copy protection of electronic substitutes, such as transaction receipts, without the need for actual copy protection of digital code. In this case the question is thus not about preventing actual copying, but instead about making copying of electronic substitutes useless by carrying out the selling or transmitting of an electronic substitute, that has been transmitted to a customer, to the next customer in every case via the service supplier's server. In this case, when selling or transmitting a purchase receipt or the like forward, the service supplier modifies the digital code of the purchase receipt and simultaneously keeps account which is the latest version of the purchase receipt in question. Only the service supplier has the secret encryption key, that is applicable for downloading and checking of the electronic purchase receipt, in which case no one else is able to make any modifications to the same. Thus, when the service supplier always modifies the electronic code of the purchase receipt in question, when the same is being sold or transmitted forward, storing of copies of earlier versions of the purchase receipt is useless, because finally when exploiting the service or like being bought, only the latest version is accepted. One remarkable improvement thanks to the invention for the part of electronic trade is thus the fact, that, when taking care of business directly through the service supplier, one may always be sure about his/her purchase receipt's authenticity and, that he/she has the only valid copy of the purchase receipt.

The invention will be described in detail in the following specification while reference is made to the accompanying drawing, in which there is shown an advantageous common principle of the method according to the invention.

The invention relates to a method for securing trade, wherein a customer C; Cl establishes a data communication contact YO with a server A, which is at least in a data transmitting connection with a service supplier T, whereafter, after the connection has been established, selects, confirms and/or makes a payment for e.g. a desired product, service, gambling contract and/or like, whereafter the server A, if necessary after verification of e.g. personal, communications, credit information and/or like furthermore, confirms, that the purchase transaction has been conducted correctly, and drafts an electronic substitute V giving right to the acquisition corresponding to the purchase transaction, that is being transmitted and stored in an electronic memory M; Ml owned by the customer C; Cl, preferably in a format being treated by a concealing system, such as being encrypted, particularly in order to secure authenticity of the trade. The transmitting or selling of the electronic substitute V, V, V", giving right to the acquisition, such as a product, a service and/or a gambling contract, to the next customer C2, C3 is being carried out through the server A, whereby according to the accom- panying drawing of principle advantageously the previous customer Cl, C2 establishes a contact Yl, Y2 with the same for the above purpose, whereby the server A modifies the substitute and updates its own system at least for the part of the modifications being done to the substitute, in order to transmit the modified substitute V , V" furthermore to the next customer .

As an advantageous embodiment of the method, it is being applied for in such a context, that the substitute, that has been stored into the customer's electronic memory M, is being checked advantageously automatically e.g. by means of a reading device B while acquiring or making use of e.g. the product, a service, a gambling contract and/or a like acquisition, whereby verification of authenticity of the substitute is being verified by means of a communication contact between the customer's memory device M and the reading device B, that is at least in a data transmitting connection with the server A and/or the service supplier T in order to bring the trade to an end. In this connection, when the product, the servi- ce, the gambling contract and/or like being bought is to be sold or transmitted Yl, Y2, the server A modifies the electronic substitute V, V , such as an identification code tl, t2 or like belonging to the same and updates the key information of the latest version V ; V" of the substitute to its own database in a way, that complementing of the trade, such as delivery of the purchased article, redemption of gambling winnings or enabling the customer to enter the destination entitled to by the purchase transacti- on, may be carried out with a communication Z between the server A and the reading device B as described above only with the latest version V" ; t3 of the substitute after a communication between the reading device B and the memory device M3 owned by the latest customer C3.

Furthermore as an advantageous embodiment of the method, the selling or transmitting of the substitute V, V , such as a ticket, a receipt and/or a gambling receipt, being stored in electronic form, to the next customer C2 , C3 , is being carried out by the server A in a way, that the modified substitute V, V", is being transmitted advantageously by means of a data communication contact Y3, Y4 directly into the next customer's C2 , C3 electronic memory M2, M3, such as a mobile phone, an electronic memory device and/or e- mail.

Furthermore as an advantageous embodiment of the method, the key information, such as former identification codes tl, t2 or customer ia_A and/or purchase transaction io related data of the substitube V" , are being stored into the service supplier's T database, in order to store the history concerning the substitute in question particularly with a view to malpractice situations.

It is obvious, that the invention is not limited to the examples disclosed or described above, as it can be subjected to a multitude of variations within the basic concept thereof. First of all transmitting of the substitute may take place e.g. in a way, that the former and the latter customer are simultaneously in connection with the server, whereby the transmission and modification of the substitute takes place in real time. On the other hand the previous customer Cl, C2 may naturally give the substitute first to the next customer C2, C3, which for his/her part establishes connection with the server in order to get a new version of the substitute and thus take care of the modification of the substitute. On the other hand in certain situations some customer may want to get himself/herself a new modified version of the substitute in order to confirm, that he/she has the only valid copy of the substitute in question. In this case the customer transmits the modified substitute to himself/herself through the server in a manner of speaking. Naturally it is furthermore obvious, that the modifying may naturally mean altering of one part of the substitute by the server or alternatively, that the server makes a totally new substitute for exploitation of the service/product in question. Naturally all future portable devices with communication capabilities are relevant within the basic concept of the invention, e.g. when the customer establishes a contact with the server of the service provider, which, after the purchase transaction, transmits an identified substitute to the memory of the customer's device, whereby the customer is able to directly exploit the service being purchased as well as transmit the same when desired to the next customer either by selling or giving.

Claims

1. Method for securing trade, wherein a customer (C; Cl) establishes a data communication contact (YO) with a server (A) , which is at least in a data transmitting connection with a service supplier (T) , whereafter, after the connection has been established, selects, confirms and/or makes a payment for his/her acquisition, such as buying a product, a service and/or a gambling contract, whereafter the server (A) , if necessary after verification of personal, communications and/or credit information, furthermore confirms, that the purchase transaction has been conducted correctly, and drafts an electronic substitute (V) , giving right to the acquisition corresponding to the purchase transaction and that is being transmitted and stored in an electronic memory owned by the customer (C; Cl) , preferably in a format being treated by a concealing system, such as being encrypted, particularly in order to secure authenticity of the trade, characterized in, that transmitting or selling of the electronic substitute (V, V, V"), giving right to the acquisition, such as a product, a service and/or a gambling contract, to the next customer (C2, C3) is being carried out through the server (A) , whereby the customer (Cl, C2 and/or C3) establishes a contact (Yl, Y2 and/or Y4) with the same for the above purpose, whereby the server (A) modifies the substitute and updates its own system at least for the part of the modifications being done to the substitute, in order to transmit the modified substitute (V, V") furthermore to the next customer.

2. Method according to claim 1, whereby the substitute being stored into the customer ' s electronic memory (M) , is being checked preferably automatically while acquiring or making use of the acquisition, such as of a product, a service and/or a gambling contract, by means of a data transmitting communication with the customer's memory device (M) for verifying authenticity of the substitute in order to bring the trade to an end, characterized in, that while selling or transmitting of the acquisition, such as the product, the service and/or the gambling contract, the server (A) modifies the electronic substitute, such as an identification code (tl, t2) belonging to the same, and updates the key information of the latest version (V") of the substitute to its own database in a way, that complementing of the trade, such as delivery of the purchased article, redemption of gambling winnings or enabling the customer to enter the destination entit- led to by the purchase transaction, may be carried out only with the latest version (V"; t3) of the substitute by a data transmitting communication with the memory device (M3) of the customer having the final right of possession.

3. Method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in, that selling or transmitting of a substitute (V, V), such as a ticket, a receipt and/or a gambling receipt, being stored in electronic form, to the next customer (C2, C3) , is being carried out by the server

(A) in a way, that the modified substitute (V, V") is being transmitted by means of a data communication contact (Y3, Y4) directly into the next customer's

(C2, C3) electronic memory (M2, M3) , such as a mobile phone, an electronic memory device and/or e-mail.

4. Method according to any of the claims 1-3 above, characterized in, that the key information, such as former identification codes (tl, t2) of the substitube (V") , are being stored into the service supplier's (T) database, in order to store the history concerning the substitute in question particularly with a view to malpractice situations.