(a)  United States Patent No. 5,336,870

Thomas S. Hughes, et al., August 9, 1994

System for remote purchase payment transactions and remote bill
payments

                               Abstract

It is the object of this invention to provide a terminal and
system to allow debit and credit card holders the ability to
conveniently perform various transactions from their home or
office. The terminal is a single device, which has an alphabetic
QWERTY keyboard, a numeric touch tone type keypad, miscellaneous
other keys, a magnetic card reader, a display, a printer, a
modem, and a serial port. The terminal firmware supports various
financial transactions including: purchase payment, bill payment,
and settlement review. The terminal supports initialization,
encryption, transaction generation, transaction transmission and
data reception from a host system and receipt printing. A local
data base including a transaction log and a profile list are
maintained in the terminal memory . The transaction log stores
purchase payment information and is stored as a stack and the
profile list has entries for each specific bill pay account.

(b)  United States Patent No. 5,809,143

Thomas S. Hughes, September 15, 1998

Secure keyboard

                               Abstract

Apparatus and methods are provided for transacting secure
purchase and bill payment transactions. A method for transacting
a secure purchase via an internet using a system including a
computer, a first communication device coupled to the computer
and to the internet, and a secure keyboard, the secure keyboard
including a controller, an interface between the controller and
the computer, a removable media interface, an alphanumeric
keypad, an encryption device, and a second communication device
coupled to a secure host, includes the steps of browsing the
internet via the first communication device, retrieving item data
for a purchase from the internet via the first communication
device, accessing information from removable media using the
removable media interface, the information including a user
identifier and an issuer identifier, entering a personal
identifier number (PIN) on the alphanumeric keypad, encrypting
the PIN using the encryption device, sending to the secure host
via the second communication device, the information, the item
data, and the encrypted PIN , the secure host blocking the
information and the PIN from the internet, the secure host
requesting authorization from a bank system for making the
purchase using the information and PIN , proceeding with the
purchase if the secure host receives from the bank system a bank
authorization for the purchase, otherwise canceling the purchase,
the secure host sending purchase transaction data to the secure
keyboard via the second communication device, and the secure
keyboard printing a purchase transaction receipt.

(c)  United States Patent No. 5,754,655

Thomas S. Hughes et al., May 19,1998

System for remote purchase payment and remote bill payment
transactions

                                 Abstract

A terminal is provided for allowing a user to conduct remote
purchase payment and remote bill payment transactions with a
remote host computer. In one embodiment, the terminal includes a
QWERTY alphabetic keyboard (14), a numeric keypad (16), a
magnetic card reader (54), a display (12), a printer (52), a
modem (338), an earphone 402, a microphone 404, and a cellular
phone 408 all integral to the terminal. A controller is included
for operating the terminal and communicating with the remote host
computer system via the modem, the controller coupled to the
QWERTY alphabetic keyboard (14), the numeric keyboard (16), the
magnetic card reader (54), the display (12), the printer (52),
and the modem (338). A memory (332) is coupled to the controller
for storing a transaction log of purchase payment transactions,
each purchase payment transaction in the transaction log
comprising a date and a time of purchase payment transaction, an
amount of the purchase payment transaction, information
identifying a merchant, information identifying an item or
service purchased, and data for identifying the transaction.