By US Fed News
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- Patrick Smets of Nijlen, Belgium, Eddy Lodewijk Hortensia Van De Velde of Leuven, Belgium, and Duncan Garrett of London, have developed a method for conducting contactless payment card transactions.
According to the abstract released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method for enhancing functional interoperability of contactless payment devices that are used for conducting electronic payment transactions between consumers and merchants. The contactless payment devices include redundant array of inexpensive disks (RFID)-embedded cards issued to consumers and proximity coupling devices such as RFID-enabled readers deployed by merchants."
An abstract of the invention, released by the Patent Office, said: "The system and method involve use of a reference card and a reference reader to establish acceptable specifications for issued cards and deployed readers, respectively. The reference card and reference reader are cross-calibrated to link the operational specifications for the cards and the readers. A suitable selection of overlapping specification ranges or tolerances for proper card and reader functions, the enhances the interoperability of the issued cards with a deployed reader, and also the interoperability of deployed readers with an issued card."
The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,424,977 on Sept. 16.
The patent has been assigned to Mastercard International Incorporated, Purchase, N.Y.
The original application was filed on July 15, 2005, and is available at:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,424,977.PN.&OS=PN/7,424,977&RS=PN/7,424,977
.
HTS aajb 080917-456496
