Slashdot Mirror
Apple Wins Patent For "iWallet"
redletterdave writes "Apple won a major patent for its 'iWallet' technology, which is a digital system that uses near-field communication (NFC) technology to complete credit card transactions and manage subsidiary financial accounts directly on your iPhone. On the home screen for iWallet, users can see their entire credit card profiles, statements, messages from their banks, and even adjust preferences or add additional cards. Within preferences, users can schedule credit card payments and set parental controls on their children, which allows kids to use their iPhones as wallets but limits the extent to which they can use it. Users can track their payments and statements within the iTunes billing system, which keeps the credit card information safe and secure."
Once again, another lame patent blocking innovation
what could possibly be better
Now I can lose my phone, camera, AND my wallet in one fell swoop?!?!?!?!?!
Whats next... iPhone car keys?
Google has had an electronic NFC based wallet in the market for almost a year now.
I assume now that Apple has patented a technology that Google developed, they will extort Google to pay them for them for writing software hadn't even developed yet.
At least now that Steve Jobs is dead, Apple is willing to license patents to Google instead of just trying to sue them into extinction.
Somebody should congratulate Apple on becoming more evil than Microsoft.
Great. Here's another technology that nobody will be allowed to use for the next 20 years.
And if you've ever wondered why Japan and Europe have had things like this for ages but we're just now seeing a glimmer of it here, it's because of stuff like this. No one ever gets ahead without someone tossing a landmine in your path and asking for their pound of flesh.
I see that the site actually useful for linking, Patently Apple, is getting their monopoly fetish on. From the sounds of things, they've managed to patent the entire concept out from under everyone else. They've managed to claim ownership over the concept of configuring accounts and placing various transaction rules on them.
So no one else can do that without Apple attacking them. I can't wait to have the entirety of NFC payments reserved exclusively to Apple devices, or Apple demanding exorbitant per-device fees for the ability to do so.
iDisgust
A severe form of dyspepsia triggered by any mention of the tech company Apple, particularly in regard to their wanton abuse of the patent and legal systems.
Prepare to be sued!
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/03/apple-wins-patent-for-iwallet-the-one-that-will-rule-the-world.html
"Apple has received a major Granted Patent that generally relates to establishing financial transaction rules for controlling a subsidiary financial account and, more particularly, to various systems, methods, and electronic devices configured to provide for the establishment of such rules."
The rules basically come down to setting one account as a subsidiary of another, and the parent account then setting a system of spending rules and limits that apply to the subsidiary account. Optionally that these rules are transmitted to the bank as well, and applied generally outside of using the NFC as well.
Yes, hello? Patent office? I would like to patent the Google Wal-... Wait, no. The iWallet. *evil laugh*.. what? Yes yes, I'll give you a free iPad.
The iWallet has been around for some time, long before NFE was even thought of.
I have an iWallet, and I have had it for 20 years - I hold it out, and the wife, kid, and merchants take what they need/want.
In b4 didn't read the article but it must be bad because Apple... Damn, too late.
With NFC payment now limited to Apple devices, most people won't have their spending history spread far and wide due to their own ignorance.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A physical wallet costs $6. While a nuisance to replace any of the identification lost, in practice, even this might run a person no more than about $40 or so.
An iphone 4s starts at about $200.
Guess which one I'm keeping my credit cards in?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Wow; parental controls for NFC spending. How revolutionary.
*loses wallet*
"Hello [$Bank]? Yes, I lost my wallet, can you cancel my card and send me a new one? A few days and it will arrive in the mail? Excellent!"
*loses phone*
*logs into Apple ID from any computer*
*cancels card link to lost/stolen phone*
*connects card to new phone*
*continues life as normal, with minimum disruption to card access*
Emphasis added.
How do you buy the new phone if your lost phone was also your wallet?
"Users can track their payments and statements within the iTunes billing system, which keeps the credit card information safe and secure."
Are you stupid enough to believe that statement about it being 'safe and secure"? If so, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you.
The only sure fire way to keep such information safe and secure is to not have a credit card to begin with.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Good to know. I was about to comment on prior art with regards to the Visa PayWave system. Which BTW I've only been able to use in two places. All others that supposedly supported PayWave were either not setup properly, or were at one point and then disabled for whatever reason according to the clerk.
Life is not for the lazy.
see, why weren't you stooping over the patent examiner's shoulder when he was reading it?
They should require that patents be written in minimal english rather than obfuscated english.
In apple's defense though, they probably had to re-develop their software over and over again when they found design holes. In contrast, a copy-cat only needs to design it once.
I suppose the alternative to this is that your phone must provide unbridled access to you wallet app if you manage to unlock it. Or an perhaps having user acccounts for your phone to restrict which apps are accessible (one for your kids).
Personally, I'd like to have an "at-ease" app which restricts the interface on phones such that a toddler can touch anything and you don't have to worry about them leaving the app then calling someone.
Not at all.
OK, there is an issue that has to be overcome, I'll get to that in a moment.
Rather than load a real credit card number into an "iWallet" use a temporary generated by your bank's online banking service. These temporaries, alias for the real card number, often have a user defined limit and expiration date so you can limit the risk as you deem appropriate.
The issue to overcome: these temporary numbers were designed to be used for online purchases. They tend to lock to the first vendor to use the number. Obviously this locking to the first vendor would have to become a user defined option at number generation time.
A more practical short term solution may be to use the debit card number for your checking account. Just be sure to only use iWallet for things you would normally pay for in cash and not for things you want the buyer protection, warranty and dispute options you would normally get with a credit card.
Ah, got it. So, Apple invented the V-chip then?
I give up on leading an honest life. Anyone stupid enough (fanbois?) to use these deserves to have them stolen. I'm taking up pick-pocketing... like, now.
Or have we forgotten that Nokia has been doing NFC payments for a decade, even if it didn't have success in that market?
Jeez, the US patent office is such a joke.
Parental controls for all sorts of other computerized monetary systems already exist. Really, fuck this "everything is new when it's on a new platform!" bullshit.
To casually drop the name of a famous person who you, a friend or relative know, so as to appear cool vicariously because you know a famous person. (Urban Dictionary)
the public is being ripped off by the incompetence and corruption of the PTO. instead of _promoting_ progress, patents are now just hunting licenses for bloodthirsty lawyers. (which is why you don't "win" a patent - it's merely something you use for extortion until someone calls your bluff and you have to defend it in court.)
Second time today I've seen a story on /. about a patent that's just an obvious/existing concept basically with just "on a mobile device" or "across a network" added to it.
Using a radio transceiver to communicate with another radio transceiver? Not novel in the slightest.
Using NFC for payments? Not novel in the slightest, see the decade or so of prior art all across the world.
Consolidating the physical content of cards? Also not novel. For years people have been photocopying the barcodes of loyalty cards and taping them together to make single cards with all the barcodes on them. And believe you me: if the technology to do the same with NFC and magnetic strips were as accessible as copy machines they would do that too, because it's obvious as hell.
Parental controls on payments? You've gotta be kidding me if you think that's novel.
But take those four non-novel, extremely obvious ideas and slap "on a mobile phone" in there somewhere and suddenly you're Leonardo da fucking Vinci.
Porquoi?
Seriously, I have been hearing about this "NFC" stuff from Americans for years.
Mean while we've HAD IT, IN FULL USE, here in Japan for even longer.
It works in card format, and it works in Mobile Phone format. You can use it for paying the train fare (the most common use), storing cash to buy other stuff at the convenience store or wherever, as a point card, and as a building-keycard in some cases It works, it has (high) 10s of millions of users, it's been tested for years.
And people in the US want to build 1 or more other systems? Why? Why build something new and incompatible? Just to be different? Is this like the metric system all over again? I mean at least there you guys had an excuse, since the "customary" system was around first, but this time?
until the USPTO blocked anyone but Apple from creating an implementation.
All for an Industry Standard 30% off the top of all transactions!
A trademark, sure. But a patent? How is any of this patent worthy? None of it is significantly different from what's already been done. There's supposed to be a "non-obvious to an expert in the field" requirement to get something patented. How does Apple keep getting away with this crap? I don't care if this patent so narrowly worded that nobody will ever have to worry about their own NFC implementation infringing--this not just a "We shouldn't have software patents" issue, this is a "We shouldn't have stupid patents" issue.
EFF Urges Supreme Court to Take Stand on Abstract Patents
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So let me get this straight, Apple just got a patent for what has existed on debit cards for many years, and is already widely used in NFC by the likes of the Master Card Paypass system and likely the competitor from VISA as well?
on your portable, high value, easy to misplace, iphone?
stupid is what stupid does.
why hot?
Come on now, electronic fund transfers and banking have been available for decades. And then there is Microsoft Wallet, Google Wallet, etc. Transfers by credit card via RFID tech has been around for many years. I remember a couple years ago of old-style "feature" cell phones experimenting with near field payment schemes, and guess what, THEY WERE NOT iPhones! Just because they added the purchase cost to your phone bill instead of a credit/debit card should make no difference. This is simply not patentable.
arriving soon in the App Store: "IReport". It helps you quickly and efficiently file a police report after your linked savings account is emptied, your credit card filled with bogus charges from Atlantic City. You thought you were pretty cool, paying for stuff by waving your phone. Somebody robbed you just as easily, it all evens out in the end. Good thing you have IReport to help you...
WTF http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/03/apple-wins-patent-for-iwallet-the-one-that-will-rule-the-world.html, 70 years ago Jack Purcher would have been buddies with Joseph Goebbels. In what reality does this guy think that everyone and his dog needs and iDevice. Ooh this week we patented red, green and blue now we want royalties on anything that's coloured. Kill Me Now.
I wonder how long until we start seeing iWallet clones start popping up. if Apple doesn't kill innovation through patent litigation, they kill it by making a product that's so popular, everyone wants to copy it.
Actually I just wanted to see what it would be like to post on the internet.