Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080201197 | System and Method for Peer Person- And Situation-Based Recommendations - A system and method for peer person and/or situation-based recommendations. In one embodiment, the method, which may be implemented on a system, comprises receiving a request for a set of entertainment events, the requesting comprising at least one of an identity of an inviter and an identify of an invitee; selecting a first set of entertainment events from a database by comparing information in the request to one or more units of data in the database, comprising peers of the inviter, peers of the invitee; and, providing to be viewed the first set of entertainment events selected from the database. In an alternative embodiment, the selecting the set of entertainment events from the database, further comprises comparing information in the request to one or more units of data in the database, comprising peer companies of the invitee, peer companies of the inviter. | 08-21-2008 |
20080201432 | System and Method for Facilitating Transfer of Experience Data in to Generate a New Member Profile for a Online Service Portal - System and method for facilitating trasfer of experience data to generate new member profile is described. In one embodiment, the method, which can be performed on a system, comprises, in response to a user being added as a member of an online service portal, accessing from a database of the service portal, the interactions between the user and the service portal from before the user joined the service portal as a member; and, generating a member profile for the user based on the interactions between the user and the service portal from before the user joined the service portal as a member. | 08-21-2008 |
20090006142 | System and Method for Tracking Spending Based on Reservations and Payments - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system for obtaining a schedule of bookings made by a user through an electronic service portal; obtaining a schedule of payment transactions to pay for bookings, the payment transactions comprising one or more of a credit card payment, a cash payment, or a payment via a cash card or debit card; and using the schedule of bookings made via the electronic service portal to identify payment transactions reimbursable to the user from a separate entity and generating an expense report of the reimbursable payment transactions. | 01-01-2009 |
20090006143 | System and Method for Interactive Natural Language Rebooking or Rescheduling of Calendar Activities - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system, for receiving from a user a request to reschedule a scheduled itinerary of events, the request received in a natural language format; passing the request through a natural language analyzer; processing results of the natural language analyzer against at least one of a current status of progress into the scheduled itinerary and profile data of the user, the profile comprising previous changes of itineraries and preferences of the user; generating one or more options in response to the user request to modify the scheduled itinerary of events, based on available options and based on the processing of the results of the natural language analyzer against at least one of current scheduled itinerary and profile data of the user; and presenting the one or more options to the user in the natural language format in which the user submitted the request. | 01-01-2009 |
20090030609 | System and Method for Proactive Agenda Management - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system for identifying a schedule of events for a first user, the schedule of events comprising of one or more of appointments and travel arrangements; identifying a current location of the first user relative to a scheduled location of the first user based on the schedule of events; in response to a divergence between a current location and a scheduled location, projecting a latency for one or more remaining scheduled events; and in response to the projected latency meeting or exceeding an identified amount, identifying priorities among remaining scheduled events and rescheduling one or more remaining scheduled events based on the identified priorities. | 01-29-2009 |
20090030742 | System and Method for Tentative Booking When Service Providers are Temporarily Unavailable - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system, for receiving a request from a user to perform at least one of schedule an event or book a transaction; selecting a service provider to schedule the event or book the transaction; contacting the selected service provider to schedule the event or book the transaction; in response to at least one of failure to establish a connection with the selected service provider or failure to receive a response from the selected service provider, notifying the user of the failure and requesting the user submit transaction data to schedule the event or book the transaction with the service provider at a subsequent time; and subsequent to receiving the transaction data from the user, establishing a connection with the selected service provider and using the received transaction data to schedule the event or book the transaction with the selected service provider. | 01-29-2009 |
20090030769 | System and Method for Latency Management Assistant - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system, for receiving an electronic communication from a user, the communication identifying a delay incurred or to be incurred by the user, relative to a pre-identified schedule of events; in response to receiving the electronic communication, accessing data identifying the pre-identified schedule of events; generating one or more options to reschedule one or more events of the schedule of events to account for the identified delay of the user; sending to the user the one or more options to reschedule one or more events of the schedule of events to account for the identified delay of the user; and, in response to receiving at least one of a selection from the user, sending notification of the reschedule to one or more of attendees and service providers of the scheduled events. | 01-29-2009 |
20090125355 | System and Method for Optimization of Group Shipments to Reduce Shipping Costs - Described herein is a method and system to provide optimizing shipping costs that can help arbitrate between a precise solution at an unreasonable cost and a reasonable solution at a very reasonable cost. | 05-14-2009 |
20090198599 | Enhanced Automated Capture of Invoices into an Electronic Payment System - The recognition of invoices for multiple issuers and multiple recipients is automated. In one approach, many invoices are received. The received invoices are compared to a database of distinguishing features. These distinguishing features are for known templates of invoices from different issuers. Templates are selected for the invoices based on the comparisons to the distinguishing features. This also identifies the issuers for the invoices. Data is extracted from the invoices based on the selected templates. In this way, invoice capture can be automated. | 08-06-2009 |
20100023407 | System and Method for Availability-Based Limited-Time Offerings and Transactions - System and method for availability based on limited-time offerings and transactions. One embodiment of the present invention provides a system and method that, based on a set of known preferences and historic transactions with customers, culls from a customer database those customers most likely to close a transaction in a short time. The selected customers are notified of the offer, and the system processes the customers responses in a timely manner, and thus allow fleeting inventories to be sold off before they expire. | 01-28-2010 |
20110184843 | ENHANCED ELECTRONIC ANONYMOUS PAYMENT SYSTEM - Enhanced systems and methods for processing invoices, payments, and money transfers are described. One aspect of the invention is a computer-implemented method (and corresponding system and computer program product) for making payments between a plurality of different payors and a plurality of different issuers through a payment system, comprising: retrieving a plurality of invoices issued by a plurality of different issuers and issued to a plurality of different payors; receiving a request from at least one of the plurality of different payors for making a payment to at least one of the plurality of different issuers in response to at least one of the plurality of invoices; and in response to receiving the request, making a payment from a bank account of said payors to a bank account of said issuer without disclosing the bank accounts. | 07-28-2011 |
20110184868 | ENHANCED INVITATION PROCESS FOR ELECTRONIC BILLING AND PAYMENT SYSTEM - Enhanced systems and methods for processing invoices, payments, and money transfers are described. One aspect of the invention is a computer-implemented method (and corresponding system and computer program product) for inviting an entity to open an account at a billing and payment system, the method comprising: issuing a check payable to the entity, wherein a checkbox for opening an account at the billing and payment system is printed on an endorsement section of the check along with a reference to additional information regarding additional information related to the account opening; receiving an image of the endorsement section of the check after the check is cleared; determining whether the checkbox is checked in the image; and responsive to a determination that the checkbox is checked, opening an account for the entity at the billing and payment system. | 07-28-2011 |
20110196771 | ENHANCED INVITATION PROCESS FOR ELECTRONIC BILLING AND PAYMENT SYSTEM - Enhanced systems and methods for processing invoices, payments, and money transfers are described. One aspect of the invention is a computer-implemented method (and corresponding system and computer program product) for inviting an entity to open an account at a billing and payment system, the method comprising: receiving from a first entity an instruction to invite a second entity to open an account at the payment system, the first entity having an account with the payment system; receiving from the first entity a security question and an answer to the security question to accompany the invitation; transmitting to the second entity the invitation along with the security question; receiving from the second entity an acceptance of the invitation along with an answer to the security question; verifying the acceptance by comparing the answer received from the second entity to the answer received from the first entity; responsive to the two answers match, determining the acceptance verified and opening an account for the second entity; and creating a link between the accounts of the two entities for the purpose of sharing invoice information, making electronic payments, transmitting remittance information, and maintaining basic information about the invitor and invitee. | 08-11-2011 |
20110196786 | DETERMINING TRUSTWORTHINESS AND FAMILIARITY OF USERS OF AN ELECTRONIC BILLING AND PAYMENT SYSTEM - Enhanced systems and methods for processing invoices, payments, and money transfers are described. One aspect of the invention is a computer-implemented method (and corresponding system and computer program product) for determining trustworthiness and familiarity of entities for a billing and payment system, the method comprising: categorizing entities into the following four categories based on their trustworthiness and familiarity to the billing and payment system: (1) a first zone for well-known and trusted entities, (2) a second zone for entities that are familiar but not well-known or not as trusted, (3) a third zone for entities that are new to the billing and payment system, and (4) a fourth zone for other entities; re-categorizing entities based at least on their payment transactions made through the billing and payment system during the time they are with the billing and payment system; and treating the entities of different categories differently according to their categories. | 08-11-2011 |
20120036065 | Enhanced Electronic Data and Metadata Interchange System and Process for Electronic Billing and Payment System - A Software As A System (SAAS)-based system is disclosed herein for sending bills and payments in conjunction with a third-party accounting system. The system deploys a downloadable program interface to configure the third-party accounting system and then send and receive data between the two systems. The transmitted bills may contain an electronic signature, a line item billing, and/or other transaction-specific meta data, and, based on cash flow needs and outstanding bills, some or all customers may be offered a very substantial time-limited discount for immediate payment. Also, customers may use the line-item billing feature to withhold partial payments for specific issues attributed to specific items. Alternatively, a communication module between SAAS units (CSU) may be deployed to configure the third-party accounting system and then send and receive data between the two systems. | 02-09-2012 |
20130204756 | Method and System for an Enhanced Business to Business Information and Money Exchange System - Systems and methods are provided to provide enhanced business to business information within an electronic money exchange. Various types of information relating to a plurality businesses are collected from a variety of sources, including transaction information, rating information, offerings information and publicly available information, such as information from third-party websites. The collected information is analyzed to create various metrics that relate to business's reliability and creditworthiness and enhanced profiles are created for each of the plurality of businesses. Facilities are provided for querying businesses to search the enhanced profiles of the plurality of businesses using various search criteria and to establish relationships with selected businesses. | 08-08-2013 |
20130226798 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR AUTOMATING PAYMENTS UTILIZING RULES AND CONSTRAINTS - An event that potentially relates to payments of an entity is detected by an electronic payment system. In response to detecting the event, automatically and without user intervention, a set of rules relating to the payments of the entity that relates to the event is retrieved, financial information relating to the set of rules relating is retrieved, a payment is determined based on the event, the set of rules and the financial information and the payment is effected. The rules may be user defined and stored in a rules database. The financial information may be drawn from the electronic payment system and/or websites of various service providers based on one or more rules. The payment may be scheduled for future execution, or may be executed immediately based on one or more rules. | 08-29-2013 |
20130239185 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR USING SOCIAL NETWORKS TO VERIFY ENTITY AFFILIATIONS AND IDENTITIES - Login credentials for at least one website, such as a social networking website, are received from a user purporting to act on behalf of an entity, for example, in the context of registering the entity with a system for electronic bill payment. Social data relating to the entity is retrieved from the websites using the login credentials. The social data comprises a plurality of social connections, each reflecting a respective relationship between the entity and a respective third party. A plurality of relevant social connections comprising at least a subset of the plurality of social connections is determined, each social connection of the plurality of relevant social connections reflecting a relationship to a respective third party that is deemed to be reliable. A reliability rating of the entity is then determined based on the plurality of relevant social connections. | 09-12-2013 |
20140129431 | Enhanced System and Method For Private Interbank Clearing System - Enhanced systems and methods for processing invoices, checks, and money transfers are described. Various aspects include the following: Invoices are compared to distinguishing features of known templates. Templates of matching features are used to extract data in the invoices. Enhanced payment documents are generated to include images of related invoices to ensure proper deposit. Payee information solicited from a payee is printed on an endorsement section of a check payable to the payee to ensure proper deposit. The payee information can be verified through a mock transaction. Unique invoice numbers and payor numbers are included in invoices to ensure proper accreditation of payments of the invoices. Money transfers among accounts of different banks are effected through master accounts in the different banks. | 05-08-2014 |
20140136382 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR USING SOCIAL NETWORKS TO VERIFY ENTITY AFFILIATIONS AND IDENTITIES - Login credentials for at least one website, such as a social networking website, are received from a user purporting to act on behalf of an entity, for example, in the context of registering the entity with a system for electronic bill payment. Social data relating to the entity is retrieved from the websites using the login credentials. The social data comprises a plurality of social connections, each reflecting a respective relationship between the entity and a respective third party. A plurality of relevant social connections comprising at least a subset of the plurality of social connections is determined, each social connection of the plurality of relevant social connections reflecting a relationship to a respective third party that is deemed to be reliable. A reliability rating of the entity is then determined based on the plurality of relevant social connections. | 05-15-2014 |
20140195416 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PAYMENT PROCESSING - A computer-implemented method includes: receiving, by a computer system, a payment request from an originator having an account at a first financial institution, wherein the payment request is associated with a receiver having an account at a second financial institution. In response to receiving the payment request, a payment instrument is disbursed to the receiver. The method further includes receiving, by the computer system, a request for a payment amount designated by the payment instrument and, in response to receiving the request for the payment amount, crediting the payment amount to a clearing account. The method also includes crediting the payment amount to the receiver's account in conjunction with debiting the payment amount from the clearing account. | 07-10-2014 |