DESC:F O R M 2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970 (39 of 1970)
&
THE PATENTS RULES, 2003
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
[See section 10 and rule 13]

1. TITLE OF THE INVENTION: SYSTEM & METHOD OF UPI
PAYMENT CONFIRMATION

2. APPLICANT (A) NAME: YOTTO LABS PVT LTD

(B) NATIONALITY: INDIA

(C) ADDRESS: B 602, SALARPURIA SILVERWOOD,
CV RAMAN NAGAR, BANGALORE,
KARNATAKA, INDIA-560 093

THE FOLLOWING SPECIFICATION PARTICULARLY DESCRIBES THE NATURE OF THIS INVENTION AND THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS TO BE PERFORMED

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[001] Technical Field
[002] The present disclosure relates to Point-Of- Sale (POS) systems and more specifically to a system and method of UPI (Unified Payment Interface in India) payment confirmation in such POS systems.
[003] Related Art
[004] UPI in India has been a transformative payment technology created for the need of cost efficiency of this country. UPI has been adopted by masses (consumers as well as businesses) already and UPI is going to be most prominent payment technologies of India. Any 2 entries (Consumer or Business) can pay to each other just by virtue of each having a bank account in any bank of individual choice. Using this simplicity and advantage of UPI, many wallet companies have started offering UPI services to consumers and business.
[005] Payment for Transactions between consumer and a business happens by 1) business publishing its account information through static or dynamic QR code and 2) consumer scaling the same from their respective Bank Apps or Wallets Apps and confirming the payment amount. Once payment is done, the consumer shows the screen of the App which shows the payment confirmation to the Business owner for visual confirmation. Once business owner is satisfied with visual inspection, he/she might as well wait for the payment confirmation in its Bank or wallet App and the close the transaction as needed.
[006] This manual human mediated payment confirmation remains sole bottleneck towards UPI adoption. Particularly in crowed situation in cash counters when many customers are trying to pay through UPI, this manual confirmation becomes impractical as well as conduit for bad customers not paying at all. This problem become further acute when a single business has multiple POS to manage many customers. In these cases, payment App is available only to the manager or owner and hence payment receipt confirmation becomes impractical.
[007] The existing solution to this payment confirmation to payment recipient business is to use additional service of Payment Gateway provided by its bank or third-party. The payment Gateways provide API which helps POS software to get the payment confirmation. However, such solution is expensive while the basic UPI payment is negligible cost to consumer or business if done without the need of Payment Gateways.
[008] Accordingly, there is a need for cost-effective solution which can help the POS of the business getting accurate and fast payment confirmation without using the additional services of the Payment Gateways.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[009] Aspects of the present invention are directed to payment confirmation in POS systems. In one embodiment, a POS system determines that a payment transaction has been initiated for a customer. The POS system suspends processing of the payment transaction in response to the determining, generates a Quick Response (QR) code specific for the payment transaction, wherein the QR code encodes details of the payment transaction and provides the QR code to the customer to enable the customer to scan the QR code and complete the payment transaction. Upon identifying that a payment corresponding to the payment transaction has been made by the customer, the POS system resumes processing of the payment transaction.
[010] Thus, the POS system automates the processing of payment confirmations without requiring specialized third-party software or using the additional services of the payment gateways.
[011] According to another aspect of the present invention, the details of the payment transaction encoded in the QR code includes one or more of a payment amount, an order/receipt ID, and an associated payment ID of the business (VPA).
[012] According to one more aspect of the present invention, the POS system (noted above) identifies the payment by intercepting a notification indicating that the customer has made the payment and determining that the payment corresponds to the payment transaction based on the information in the notification. In one embodiment, the notification is one of a Push Notification or short message service (SMS) notification.
[013] According to yet another aspect of the present invention, the POS system (noted above) maintains a set of payment transactions that are in suspended state and comparing the information in the notification with the details of each of the set of payment transactions in the suspended state to determine that the payment corresponds to the payment transaction.
[014] According to an aspect of the present invention, the POS system (noted above) resumes processing of the payment transaction by one or more of printing a payment receipt for the payment transaction, sending the payment receipt to the customer and changing the payment transaction from the suspended state to a completed state.
[015] Several aspects of the invention are described below with reference to examples for illustration. However, one skilled in the relevant art will recognize that the invention can be practiced without one or more of the specific details or with other methods, components, materials and so forth. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown in detail to avoid obscuring the features of the invention. Furthermore, the features/aspects described can be practiced in various combinations, though only some of the combinations are described herein for conciseness.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[016] Example embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings briefly described below.
[017] FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing system in which various aspects of the present invention can be implemented.
[018] FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the manner in which payment confirmation is performed in a POS system according to aspects of the present invention.
[019] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a POS system in one embodiment.
[020] FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating the details of a digital processing system in which various aspects of the present invention are operative by execution of appropriate execution modules.
[021] In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[022] It is to be understood that the present disclosure is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The present disclosure is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
[023] The use of “including”, “comprising” or “having” and variations thereof herein is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items. The terms “a” and “an” herein do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced items. Further, the use of terms “first”, “second”, and “third”, and the like, herein do not denote any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another.
[024] All documents cited in the present specification are hereby incorporated by reference in their totality. In particular, the teachings of all documents herein specifically referred to are incorporated by reference.
[025] 1. Example Environment
[026] FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing system (100) in which various aspects of the present invention can be implemented. The block diagram is shown containing personal device 110, payment gateways 120a-120c, network 130, Point-Of-Sale (POS) system 150, and data store 180.
[027] Merely for illustration, only representative number/type of systems is shown in FIG. 1. Many computing systems often contain many more systems, both in number and type, depending on the purpose for which the computing system is designed. Each system/ device of FIG. 1 is described below in further detail.
[028] Network 130 provides connectivity between payment gateways 120a-120c, POS system 150 and personal device 110. Network 130 may represent Wireless/LAN networks implemented using protocols such as Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), or circuit switched network implemented using protocols such as GSM, CDMA, etc. as is well known in the relevant arts.
[029] In general, network 130 provides transport of packets, with each packet containing a source address (as assigned to the specific system from which the packet originates) and a destination address, equaling the specific address assigned to the specific system to which a packet is destined/targeted. The packets would generally contain the requests and responses between the payment gateways 120a-120c, POS system 150 and personal device 110 as described in detail in the below sections.
[030] Each of payment gateways 120a-120c represents a system, such as a web and/or application server, executing various software applications designed to perform tasks requested by users using personal device 110 or received from POS system 150. In one embodiment, the software applications facilitate users to make electronic payments via one or more pre-specified payment methods and also sends notifications upon successfully making the payments. An example of a payment gateway is the UPI (Unified Payment Interface in India) payment gateway.
[031] Personal device 110 represents a system such as a personal computer, workstation, mobile phones (e.g., iPhone available from Apple Corporation), tablets, portable devices (also referred to as "smart" devices") that operate with a generic operating system such as Android operating system available from Google Corporation, etc., used by users to send (client) requests to payment gateways 120a-120c. In addition, personal device 110 may include various hardware (and corresponding software) sensors such as camera, microphone, accelerometers, etc.
[032] In general, a client device enables an end-user/customer to send client requests for performing desired tasks (making a payment) to payment gateways 120a-120c and to receive corresponding responses containing the results of performance of the requested tasks (e.g., notification of successful payment). In addition, personal device 110 also is capable of receiving (push) notifications from payment gateways 120a-120c.
[033] Data store 180 represents a non-volatile storage, facilitating storage and retrieval of a collection of data by POS system 150. Data store 180 may maintain information such as details of payment transactions, transactions in suspended state and/or completed state, details of the customers, etc. In one embodiment, data store 180 is implemented using relational database technologies where the data is maintained in the form of databases containing tables and columns and provides storage and retrieval of data using structured queries such as SQL (Structured Query Language), as is well known in the relevant arts. Alternatively, data store 180 may be implemented as a file server and store data in the form of one or more files organized in the form of a hierarchy of directories, as is well known in the relevant arts.
[034] POS system 150 represents one of a personal device similar to 110, a point-of-service terminal or a server system deployed in the premises of a business entity. POS system 150 primarily facilitates the business entity to process payment transactions of customers. However, as noted in the Background section, there is a need for cost-effective solution which can help the POS of the business entity to get accurate and fast payment confirmation.
[035] POS system 150, provided according to several aspects of the present invention, automates the processing of payment confirmations without requiring specialized third-party software or using the additional services of the payment gateways, as described below with examples.
[036] 2. General Flow
[037] FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the manner in which payment confirmation is performed in a POS system according to aspects of the present invention. The flowchart is described with respect to FIG. 1, in particular, POS system 150, merely for illustration. However, various features can be implemented in other systems and/or other environments also without departing from the scope of various aspects of the present invention, as will be apparent to one skilled in the relevant arts by reading the disclosure provided herein.
[038] In addition, some of the steps may be performed in a different sequence than that depicted below, as suited in the specific environment, as will be apparent to one skilled in the relevant arts. Many of such implementations are contemplated to be covered by several aspects of the present invention.
[039] In step 201, POS system 150 determines that a payment transaction has been initiated for a customer. The determination may be performed in response to a user (such as a staff of the business entry) entering the details of the payment transaction in a user interface provided by POS system 150.
[040] In step 202, POS system 150 suspends processing of the payment transaction in response to the determining. The term “suspend” implies that POS system 150 does not perform any further actions associated with the suspended payment transaction. Such suspended payment transactions are referred to as being in a suspended state. It may be appreciated that there may be multiple payment transactions in a suspended state.
[041] In step 203, POS system 150 generates a Quick Response (QR) code specific for the payment transaction, wherein the QR code encodes details of the payment transaction such as a payment amount, an order/receipt ID, and an associated payment ID of the business (VPA). The QR code may be generated in a known way based on the details of the payment transaction.
[042] In step 204, POS system 150 provides the QR code to the customer to enable the customer to scan the QR code and complete the payment transaction. The QR code may be displayed on a display unit associated with POS system 150. Alternatively, the QR code may be provided as a printed order ticket that can be scanned by the customer.
[043] In step 205, POS system 150 identifies that a payment corresponding to the payment transaction has been made by the customer. The identification of payment may be made in any desirable manner. According to an aspect of the invention, POS system 150 intercepts a notification indicating that the customer has made the payment and determines that the payment corresponds to the payment transaction based on the information in the notification. The notification may be one of a Push Notification or short message service (SMS) notification.
[044] According to another aspect of the invention, POS system 150 maintains a set of payment transactions that are in suspended state and compares the information in the notification with the details of each of the set of payment transactions in the suspended state to determine that the payment corresponds to the payment transaction.
[045] In step 206, POS system 150 resumes processing of the payment transaction in view of the identifying of the payment made by the customer (in step 205). The resuming of processing may include one or more of printing a payment receipt for the payment transaction, sending the payment receipt to the customer (via SMS, email, push notification, etc.) and changing the payment transaction from the suspended state to a completed state.
[046] The manner in which POS system 150 operating according to the steps of FIG.2 may be implemented is described below with examples.
[047] 3. Example Implementation
[048] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a POS system (150) in one embodiment. The block diagram is shown containing network interface 310, gateway client module 320, notification monitor 330, QR generator 340, POS module 350 and data interface 360. Each of the blocks is described in detail below.
[049] Network interface 310 facilitates the various components/blocks of POS system 150 to communicate with other systems (such as payment gateways 120a-120c) via network 130. Network interface 310 also facilitates POS system 150 to receive various types of notifications such as push notifications and SMS notification received from other systems (such as payment gateways 120a-120c). Similarly, data interface 360 facilitates the various components/blocks of POS system 150 to communicate with data store 180.
[050] POS module 350 determines that a payment transaction has been initiated for a customer and suspends processing of the payment transaction in response to the determining. POS module 350 maintains (using data interface 360) the details of the suspended payment transaction in data store 180. POS module 350 then sends the details of the payment transaction to QR generator 340.
[051] QR generator 340 receives the details of the payment transaction such as a payment amount, an order/receipt ID, and an associated payment ID of the business (VPA), generates a QR code encoding the received payment details, and provides the generated QR code to POS module 350. POS module 350, in turn, provides the generated QR code to the customer to enable the customer to scan the QR code and complete the payment transaction.
[052] It may be appreciated that the customer typically scans the QR code and makes a payment by communications with one (assumed to be 120a for illustration) of payment gateways 120a-120c. Such communication may entail the customer using personal device 110 to send requests to and receive corresponding responses from payment gateway 120a. Upon successful payment, the customer receives from payment gateway 120a a notification on his/her personal device indicating successful payment. In addition, payment gateway 120a also sends a notification to POS system 150, in particular, to gateway client module 320 executing in POS system 150.
[053] Gateway client module 320 represents a client application (e.g., mobile application) provided by a payment gateway vendor (assumed to be 120a for illustration). Gateway client module 320 is designed to receive notifications (such as of successful payment) from payment gateway 120a via network interface 310.
[054] Notification monitor 330 is designed to monitor the various notifications received by POS system 150 via network interface 310, in particular, the notifications directed to gateway client module 320. Upon intercepting/finding a notification indicating that the customer has made a successful payment, notification monitor 330 captures the information in the notification and sends the captured information to POS module 350.
[055] Upon receiving the information from notification monitor 330, POS module 350 compares the received information in the notification with the details of each of a set of payment transactions in the suspended state (maintained in data store 18) to determine that the payment corresponds to the payment transaction.
[056] POS module 350 then resumes processing of the payment transaction in view of the identifying of the successful payment made by the customer. The resuming of processing may include one or more of printing a payment receipt for the payment transaction, sending the payment receipt to the customer (via SMS, email, push notification, etc.) and changing the payment transaction from the suspended state to a completed state
[057] Thus, POS system 150 automates the processing of payment confirmations without requiring specialized third-party software or using the additional services of the payment gateways.
[058] It should be appreciated that the above noted features can be implemented in various embodiments as a desired combination of one or more of hardware, execution modules and firmware. The description is continued with respect to one embodiment in which various features are operative when execution modules are executed.
[059] 4. Digital Processing System
[060] FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating the details of digital processing system 400 in which various aspects of the present invention are operative by execution of appropriate execution modules. Digital processing system 400 may correspond to POS system 150.
[061] Digital processing system 400 may contain one or more processors (such as a central processing unit (CPU) 401), random access memory (RAM) 402, secondary memory 403, graphics controller 406, display unit 407, network interface 408, and input interface 409. All the components except display unit 407 may communicate with each other over communication path 405 which may contain several buses as is well known in the relevant arts. The components of FIG. 4 are described below in further detail.
[062] CPU 401 may execute instructions stored in RAM 402 to provide several features of the present invention. CPU 401 may contain multiple processing units, with each processing unit potentially being designed for a specific task. Alternatively, CPU 401 may contain only a single general-purpose processing unit. RAM 402 may receive instructions from secondary memory 403 using communication path 405.
[063] Graphics controller 406 generates display signals (e.g., in RGB format) to display unit 407 based on data/instructions received from CPU 401. Display unit 407 contains a display screen to display the images defined by the display signals. Input interface 409 may correspond to a keyboard and a pointing device (e.g., touch-pad, mouse), which enable the various inputs to be provided.
[064] Network interface 408 provides connectivity to a network (e.g., using Internet Protocol), and may be used to communicate with other connected systems. Network interface 408 may provide such connectivity over a wire (in the case of TCP/IP based communication) or wirelessly (in the case of WIFI, Bluetooth based communication).
[065] Secondary memory 403 may contain hard drive 403a, flash memory 403b, and removable storage drive 403c. Secondary memory 403 may store the data (e.g., portions of payment details, notifications, etc.) and software instructions (e.g., for implementing the steps of FIG. 2, for implementing the blocks of FIG. 3), which enable digital processing system 400 to provide several features in accordance with the present invention.
[066] Some or all of the data and instructions may be provided on removable storage unit 404, and the data and instructions may be read and provided by removable storage drive 403c to CPU 401. Floppy drive, magnetic tape drive, CD-ROM drive, DVD Drive, Flash memory, removable memory chip (PCMCIA Card, EPROM) are examples of such removable storage drive 403c.
[067] Removable storage unit 404 may be implemented using storage format compatible with removable storage drive 403c such that removable storage drive 403c can read the data and instructions. Thus, removable storage unit 404 includes a computer readable storage medium having stored therein computer software (in the form of execution modules) and/or data.
[068] However, the computer (or machine, in general) readable storage medium can be in other forms (e.g., non-removable, random access, etc.). These “computer program products” are means for providing execution modules to digital processing system 400. CPU 401 may retrieve the software instructions (forming the execution modules) and execute the instructions to provide various features of the present invention described above.
[069] It is to be understood that the present disclosure is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The present disclosure is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
[070] Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, or similar language means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment”, “in an embodiment” and similar language throughout this specification may, but do not necessarily, all refer to the same embodiment.
[071] The use of "including", "comprising" or "having" and variations thereof herein is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items. The terms "a" and "an" herein do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item. Further, the use of terms "first", "second", and "third", and the like, herein do not denote any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another.
[072] All documents cited in the present specification are hereby incorporated by reference in their totality. In particular, the teachings of all documents herein specifically referred to are incorporated by reference.
,CLAIMS:I/WE CLAIM:
1. A method for payment confirmation performed in a Point-Of-Sale (POS) system, said method comprising:
determining that a payment transaction has been initiated for a customer;
suspending processing of said payment transaction in response to said determining;
generating a Quick Response (QR) code specific for said payment transaction, wherein said QR code encodes details of said payment transaction; and
providing said QR code to said customer to enable said customer to scan said QR code and complete said payment transaction;
identifying that a payment corresponding to said payment transaction has been made by said customer; and
resuming processing of said payment transaction in view of said identifying of said payment made by said customer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said details of said payment transaction includes one or more of a payment amount, an order/receipt ID, and an associated payment ID of the business (VPA).

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying comprises:
intercepting a notification indicating that said customer has made said payment; and
determining that said payment corresponds to said payment transaction based on the information in said notification.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:
maintaining a set of payment transactions that are in suspended state; and
comparing the information in said notification with the details of each of said set of payment transactions in said suspended state to determine that said payment corresponds to said payment transaction.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said notification is one of a Push Notification or short message service (SMS) notification.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein said resuming processing comprises one or more of printing a payment receipt for said payment transaction, sending said payment receipt to said customer and changing said payment transaction from said suspended state to a completed state.

7. A Point-Of-Sale (POS) system performing the actions of:
determining that a payment transaction has been initiated for a customer;
suspending processing of said payment transaction in response to said determining;
generating a Quick Response (QR) code specific for said payment transaction, wherein said QR code encodes details of said payment transaction; and
providing said QR code to said customer to enable said customer to scan said QR code and complete said payment transaction;
identifying that a payment corresponding to said payment transaction has been made by said customer; and
resuming processing of said payment transaction in view of said identifying of said payment made by said customer.

8. The POS system of claim 7, wherein for said identifying, said POS system performs the actions of:
intercepting a notification indicating that said customer has made said payment; and
determining that said payment corresponds to said payment transaction based on the information in said notification.

9. The POS system of claim 8, further performing the actions of:
maintaining a set of payment transactions that are in suspended state; and
comparing the information in said notification with the details of each of said set of payment transactions in said suspended state to determine that said payment corresponds to said payment transaction.

10. The POS system of claim 9, wherein said notification is one of a Push Notification or short message service (SMS) notification.