Method and apparatus for billing for transactions conducted over the internet

Patent 6047268 Issued on April 4, 2000. Estimated Expiration Date:

November 4, 2017. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

Patent References

Method and apparatus for entity authentication
Patent #: 5481611
Issued on: 01/02/1996
Inventor: Owens, et al.

Method, apparatus, system and firmware for secure transactions
Patent #: 5748740
Issued on: 05/05/1998
Inventor: Curry, et al.

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Patent #: 5774525
Issued on: 06/30/1998
Inventor: Kanevsky, et al.

System and method for billing for transactions conducted over the internet from within an intranet
Patent #: 5845267
Issued on: 12/01/1998
Inventor: Ronen

Distributed file system web server user authentication with cookies Patent #: 5875296
Issued on: 02/23/1999
Inventor: Shi, et al.

Inventors

Application

No. 964274 filed on 11/04/1997

US Classes:

705/35, Finance (e.g., banking, investment or credit)705/40, Bill distribution or payment713/153Particular node (e.g., gateway, bridge, router, etc.) for directing data and applying cryptography

Examiners

Primary: Teska, Kevin J.
Assistant: Smith, Demetra R.

International Class

G06F 017/60

Abstract

A method and apparatus for authenticating transactions accomplished over a data network utilizes a "cookie" containing both static information (user-identifying information) and dynamic information (transaction-based information). The transaction-oriented dynamic information portion comprises a random number and a sequence number, the latter tracking the number of billing transactions conducted by the user associated with the account number. The cookie, sent to the user's cookie file upon a previous transaction, is valid for only a single new transaction. A billing server, upon receiving the cookie containing the static and dynamic information portions, identifies the user from the account number in the static portion and accesses from an associated database the expected random number and sequence number that the billing server last sent to that user in the transaction-oriented dynamic portion. If the expected dynamic portion matches the received dynamic portion, the user is authenticated to proceed with the current transaction.