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Apple Wins Patent For "iWallet"

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-different dept.

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."

23 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Once again, another lame patent blocking innovation

    1. Re:lame by dimeglio · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Doesn't sound like it. They just patented "a way" of using NFC. Should be simple enough to find another way.

      --
      Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
    2. Re:lame by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Funny

      They just patented "a way" of using NFC.

      To extract more money from everybody's wallets.

      It's the Apple way.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  2. Great..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now I can lose my phone, camera, AND my wallet in one fell swoop?!?!?!?!?!

    Whats next... iPhone car keys?

    1. Re:Great..... by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would imagine that the iWallet could be remotely revoked.

      Sure. Say you reach for your iWallet to buy a coffee and realize that you left it at the news stand 10 minutes earlier. Fortunately, you have the ability to remotely disable access to your accounts. So, you just pull out your smart phone and. . .ruh-roh!

      Meanwhile, the clerk at the news stand sees that your iWallet has been left behind. Being an honest sort, he decides to try to reunite the device with its owner by calling. . .ruh-roh!

  3. More like iExtortion by bit+trollent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:More like iExtortion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The ridiculous part here is that Japan has been using the same technology for HOW MANY years now?

    2. Re:More like iExtortion by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would you even play a game you hate?

      --
      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    3. Re:More like iExtortion by siddesu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Quite a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa. I broke two laptops with a built-in card reader extension already, so at least 5 years.

    4. Re:More like iExtortion by russotto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would you even play a game you hate?

      Because it's the only game in town.

  4. Another one bites the dust by Chemisor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great. Here's another technology that nobody will be allowed to use for the next 20 years.

    1. Re:Another one bites the dust by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nice grammar. Also, there were literally dozens of different music players before the iPod, so nice analogy fail.

      --
      "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  5. Apple, anti-competition master. by Microlith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Apple, anti-competition master. by Microlith · · Score: 4, Informative

      Americans are slow to pick up this kind of technology. It's been a problem for decades and it has nothing to do with patents.

      Except that no NFC hardware has been on the market here for the better part of a decade, while it's been steadily rolled out and available elsewhere. The technology has, quite simply, not been available.

      Do you think Europe and Japan don't have patents? or that they are irrelevant?

      At least in Europe, software patents aren't valid. And in Japan, they seem to not have nearly the problems we do in the US with building and rolling out systems that are widely compatible between companies and regions. Here in the US a purely software pile of BS will block other vendors from distributing anything useful and open up everyone to legal assault, and deliberate incompatibilities and everyone demanding their own transaction fee and associated charge and alliance or it fails to work readily inhibits the adoption of new technologies and other customer-beneficial options.

    2. Re:Apple, anti-competition master. by Kagetsuki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Posting because I tried to mod you "informative" but accidentally hit "redundant". Sorry.

      But yes, THIS. The origin of the technology is "FeliCa" which started development in 1988 and was released in 1994. At this point here in Japan I have my train pass and cash on my phone and IC based systems are used in so many places now I could basically get by with nothing but my phone and drivers license.

  6. New disorder by WillyWanker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:New disorder by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I normally wouldn't reply to an AC, but this pissed me off.

      This is exactly the type of thing Apple would brainwash you into believing: that people aren't sick of their shit.

      Welcome to reality. Step outside the distortion field for one second and you'll see how truly asinine and annoying it is when Apple, Google, MS, or any of those tech giants squash advancement for another, purely out of greed. Lately, Apple has been by far the worst. They reach out and patent technologies that other companies are well into developing, which they probably would have already had patents for - except they are normal, rational people who don't think someone is going to patent such a broad-sweeping commonplace item.

      Nobody in their right mind would go after a 'slide to unlock' patent, the words 'AppStore', or patenting RFID(basically) all over again. There has been a slide-lock device somewhere on my house since I was born 30 years ago. I have no doubt there is a patent somewhere for the hardware version, and it has been around for at least a hundred years. How's that for prior art? RFID has been around since at least the late 1980s.

      I'm surprised it is allowed to continue as it is completely anticompetitive to patent such vague concepts without any actual R&D and with (literally) tons of prior art.

      --
      If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
    2. Re:New disorder by Dog-Cow · · Score: 3, Informative

      The problem is that you don't understand the US patent system. It's perfectly valid to patent the same idea, as long as it's a new implementation. That you have a physical sliding lock on your door is completely irrelevant to the ability to patent a software version. Once you accept the idea of software patents, it's trivial to see that slide-to-unlock on the iphone can not possibly have the same implementation as the lock on your door.

  7. No, they patented a system of NFC spending rules by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. That is complete BS! by warp_kez · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  9. Re:The core problem with the digital wallet... by jo_ham · · Score: 5, Insightful

    *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*

    This doesn't even need to be about Apple - NFC payments and "electronic wallets" are the future

  10. Yeah, sure. by Cosgrach · · Score: 3, Informative

    "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?
  11. Re:Just one thing. . . by mark-t · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Look at this way.

    iPhone = Luxury item. Expensive.

    Wallet = Necessary item. Cheap to replace.

    If you combine them into one thing, you end up with a necessary item that costs a lot to replace. This is not a good thing.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'