Time-Varying Digital Coupon Validation Without Centralized Database
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Solution Overview
Problem
Digital coupons face challenges in validation and reimbursement, as retailers lack a paper version to send to conventional coupon clearing services, leading to potential fraud and unreimbursed discounts, especially in environments without real-time connectivity to centralized databases.
Innovation Solution
A computer system that generates and validates time-varying, non-predictable codes associated with transaction locations, allowing retailers to verify digital coupon authorization without direct communication with the content delivery system, using tokens that match server-generated codes with those displayed on mobile devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If digital coupons are used without real-time connection to centralized database, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability of validation is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-generates and stores time-varying validation codes at the point of sale device before any coupon redemption occurs. These codes are generated in advance based on time synchronization rather than real-time server communication, enabling validation to proceed offline while maintaining security through pre-established cryptographic relationships between server and client devices.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If time-out mechanism is used for digital coupons, then fraud reduction is improved, but reliability of authorization verification is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using a simple time-out mechanism that checks only whether a coupon has expired, the system implements time-synchronized validation codes that change predictably based on the current time. The validation code is derived from a seed value combined with the current timestamp, allowing the system to verify both that the coupon is currently valid and that it has not been tampered with, providing both fraud prevention and reliable authorization verification simultaneously.
3Reliability
If serialized one-time-use digital coupons are used with centralized database, then reliability of validation is improved, but device complexity is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts the centralized database dependency from the validation process by implementing a distributed validation mechanism where each point of sale device maintains its own local validation capability through pre-generated time-synchronized codes. This removes the requirement for continuous real-time communication with a centralized database while maintaining the security and reliability of one-time-use coupon validation, significantly reducing device complexity and infrastructure requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer system includes a content delivery system that delivers digital content from a source to a mobile device, which in turn presents the digital content to a recipient computer system. The recipient computer system can validate that the digital content presented by the mobile device is authorized by the source of that digital content without the recipient computer system communicating with the content delivery system for such validation. Digital content presented on a mobile phone can be validated by a recipient as being authorized by a source, without a connection to a centralized database. To perform such validation, the computer system uses i) a transaction location determined at the time of a transaction based on information received from the mobile device, and ii) a time-varying, non-predictable code associated with the transaction location.