Patent ID: 7587196

Claim:
A method of processing a transaction request by a first customer mobile terminal at a transaction system, the method comprising: establishing via at least one wireless access point respective wireless communications links between the transaction system and a number of customer mobile terminals corresponding to respective customers, the transaction system including a point of sale system and a server connected to the point of sale system and to the at least one wireless access point; wirelessly transmitting a transaction request from the first customer mobile terminal to the server via said at least one wireless access point; in response to the transaction request, generating by the server an identifier identifying the first customer mobile terminal; transmitting the identifier from the server to the first customer mobile terminal via said at least one wireless access point; and identifying at the point of sale system the first customer mobile terminal among the number of customer mobile terminals having established a respective wireless communications link as being a customer mobile terminal carried by a selected customer by communicating the identifier to the point of sale system, wherein identifying the first customer device includes: assigning respective identifiers to each of the number of customer mobile terminals by the transaction system, a first identifier being assigned to the first customer mobile terminal; transmitting the respective identifiers from the transaction system to the corresponding customer mobile terminals via the corresponding wireless communications links; and using the first identifier to identify the first customer mobile terminal carried by the selected customer, wherein the first identifier has a length determined by the transaction system based on the number of customer mobile terminals having established a wireless communications link with the transaction system.