Google Gpay

One virtual card does it all...

[pageoneresults]

I was out doing my morning browsing this morning and I typically stop by Bill Slawski's site to see which patents he is discussing. He's got a interesting review of a newly granted Google Patent...

Google just published a new patent application that takes payments much further than the world of online ecommerce. Screen shots from the filing show the name Gpay attached to this system, a name that Eric Schmidt had been using to refer to a payment system during the March Analyst day in 2006.

Google Checkout Precursor GBuy More Ambitious Than Paypal
[seobythesea.com...]

[tedster]

Whoa, this could be very, very big. Bill writes:

...none of [the examples of payment types] are online transactions, but rather involve the use of text messages for the purchase of goods or services with a payment made by the person making a purchase, and verification received by the seller.

Payments to vending machines, and to community honor systems (for example, an office lunchroom snack program) are also included within examples in the document...

...This payment system isn’t a competitor for Paypal. Such a comparison would be selling Gpay short.

[Lord Majestic]

I look at all this and think: Thank God it is not possible to patent business methods, computer algorithms or ideas in Europe. More competition in payment systems market is certainly a welcome thing, but this approach of patenting stuff is clearly designed to inhibit competition, hardly a "do no evil" thing. Frankly Google in this decade is the same as Microsoft was in 90-s: anything they did was greeted with great enthusiasm regardless of actual merits. I suppose maybe that's why Microsoft hates Google.

[RonPK]

involve the use of text messages for the purchase of goods or services

I read somewhere else that in Estonia 70% of all parking meter tickets are paid with text messages. Antwerp (Belgium) introduced a similar system last year. Surely some U.S. city must also be using text messages by now?

[appi2]

Not google but similar thing called PayForIt.
News on new mobile micro payments for UK.
Mobiles to become digital wallets BBC link [news.bbc.co.uk]