US 12,361,799 B2
Electronic retail self-checkout system
Nils Bergmann, Düsseldorf (DE); Nino Raddao, Düsseldorf (DE); and Moritz Wiechmann, Düsseldorf (DE)
Assigned to PAYFREE GMBH, Duesseldorf (DE)
Appl. No. 18/286,711
Filed by PAYFREE GMBH, Düsseldorf (DE)
PCT Filed May 4, 2022, PCT No. PCT/EP2022/061897
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Oct. 12, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/233900, PCT Pub. Date Nov. 10, 2022.
Claims priority of application No. 21172138 (EP), filed on May 4, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2024/0194035 A1, Jun. 13, 2024
Int. Cl. G07G 1/00 (2006.01); G06Q 20/20 (2012.01); G06Q 20/32 (2012.01); G06Q 20/40 (2012.01)
CPC G07G 1/009 (2013.01) [G06Q 20/208 (2013.01); G06Q 20/3278 (2013.01); G06Q 20/40155 (2020.05)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method executed by an electronic retail self-checkout system, the system comprising:
one or more checkout-terminals respectively comprising: a scanning unit and a person-presence-sensor;
a plurality of beacons per checkout-terminal, wherein a beacon is a hardware transmitter configured to broadcast a signal to nearby portable telecommunication devices for enabling the portable telecommunication devices to determine their position based on the signals; and
a server computer operatively coupled to portable telecommunication devices of multiple customers and to the one or more checkout-terminals;
wherein the method comprises:
receiving, by the server computer, a terminal-check-in request from the portable telecommunication device of one of the customers, the terminal-check-in request comprising a customer-ID of the customer and comprising beacon signal information indicative of the one of the one or more checkout-terminals where the customer tries to perform the terminal-check-in;
reading, by the scanning unit of the one checkout-terminal, information from product tags attached to goods that are one or more of: positioned in, and positioned within, a predefined distance to a cavity of the scanning unit;
upon determining, by the one checkout-terminal via its person-presence-sensor, that a person is one or more of: present in, and moves within, an area within a predefined spatial proximity of the one checkout-terminal, sending by the one checkout-terminal a payment request to the server computer, the payment request comprising the read tag information and a terminal-ID of the one checkout-terminal;
receiving, by the server computer, the payment request from the checkout-terminal;
verifying, by the server computer, whether a time interval between receiving the terminal-check-in request and the payment request for the same one of the one or more checkout-terminals is below a threshold value; and
only if the time interval is below the threshold, initializing, by the server computer, a payment transaction for the customer from whose portable telecommunication device the terminal-check-in request was received based on information in the payment request.