Standard Payment Interface for Online Service Providers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Online service providers face significant resource challenges in developing and maintaining multiple interfaces to interact with various payment providers, leading to complex and error-prone software maintenance, and they may be held responsible for chargebacks due to direct payment interactions with users.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a standard interface by online service providers that allows payment providers to interact with them, enabling users to make purchases using credits stored by the service provider, which reduces the need for multiple interfaces and shifts responsibility for chargebacks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If online service providers develop and maintain multiple interfaces for different payment providers, then they can support more payment providers and facilitate payments for more customers, but the complexity and resource requirements for development and maintenance increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a payment platform as an intermediary layer between online service providers and multiple payment providers. The payment platform implements a standard interface that payment providers can invoke to add credits to user accounts. This mediator absorbs the complexity of interfacing with different payment providers, while online service providers only need to implement the simple standard interface for credit management, thus resolving the contradiction between supporting multiple payment providers and maintaining software complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal standard interface that serves multiple payment providers simultaneously. Instead of each online service provider implementing separate interfaces for each payment provider, the standard interface is designed to be universally compatible with different payment providers through the payment platform. This multi-functional interface reduces development and maintenance resources while maintaining broad payment provider support
2Productivity
If online service providers directly interact with payment providers to process payments, then they can complete transactions efficiently, but they may be held responsible for chargebacks and security concerns
Solution Approach 1:
The payment platform serves as an intermediary that transfers credits to user accounts rather than directly charging users. This intermediary structure shifts the responsibility for chargebacks from online service providers to the payment platform, as the credit transfer mechanism isolates online service providers from direct payment obligations and associated risks while maintaining efficient transaction processing
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the payment process into two distinct functions: credit addition (handled by payment providers through the standard interface) and purchase authorization (handled by online service providers based on stored credits). This segmentation separates the chargeback risk from the online service provider, as they only authorize purchases based on pre-transferred credits rather than directly processing payments, thus reducing their liability while maintaining productivity
Data Source
AI summary
Payment providers interact with an online service provider using a standard interface provided by the online service provider for different payment providers. A payment provider can invoke the interface of the online service provider to add credits for a user of the online service provider. The online service provider allows users to make purchases using credits. The online service provider authorizes purchases made by the user based on credits available for the user or based on a history of payments from the user. The online service provider sends an invoice based on the purchases to the payment provider. The payment provider can be any system that can invoke the interface provided by the online service provider. For example, the payment provider can be a financial institution, another user, or a business that provides credits to the user for performing actions that benefit the business.