Google Patent Triggers Mobile Rumors
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Call it the story that just won’t die. The idea of Google creating its own smart phone, to compete with the likes of Apple and more conventional companies in the industry, keeps growing under its own steam. A patent filing by Google, which was made public only recently, has been adding fuel to the fire.
The patent was filed at the end of February 2006, and published just recently. Google engineer Ramy Dodin has his name on the patent. It describes “a computer-implemented method of effectuating a payment, comprising: receiving at a computer server system a text message from a payor containing a payment request comprising a payment amount sent by a payor device operating independently of the computer server system; debiting a payor account for an amount corresponding to the amount of the payment request; and crediting a payee account that is independent of the computer server system.” If you enjoy reading this sort of thing, here’s the full text of the patent.
So what does that mean in plain English? Say you want to make a purchase from a vending machine, or pay for your dinner at Red Lobster. You use your cell phone to send a text message to “GPay,” as it was called in illustrations accompanying the patent. The message goes to the particular Google servers in charge of such things. The system then debits your account and credits the merchant’s account. You’d have to keep a balance with GPay to do this, but the merchant would not need to since payments are made externally to GPay’s system.
Everybody is wondering why Google filed this application. Some observers have all but stated that the search engine giant is ready to roll this out as a product. Never mind that a Google spokesman said “We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t.” He might as well have been talking to the air for all he managed to slow down anyone’s fevered imagination.
Next: But Text Message Payment Already Exists >>
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