Apple Files Patent For Digital Wallet

Incase the current digital wallet market wasn’t saturated enough, another major player may soon throw its hat into the ring.

Apple applied for a patent for a “method and system for managing credits via a mobile device” yesterday, as VentureBeat reported. And if you name payments buzzwords – whether their mobile or digital wallet, virtual currency, NFC or otherwise – odds are they pertain to Apple’s patent.

Oh, and did we mention a potential ability to make money by viewing adds, too? This patent is jam-packed with payments goodies.

A basic breakdown of what the patent implies is that Apple is designing a way for you to walk into a store and make a transaction via phone: hardly a revolutionary concept.

What’s more interesting, though, is that Apple mentions (although doesn’t require) NFC as a possible means for this transaction to occur: something they’ve been set against in the past.

Exactly how this platform would work with Passbook, which has not yet truly been used as the mobile wallet precursor many expected, is unclear. But of note is an intriguing system of services that result in receiving “tokens” or coupons, including the potential ability to watch ads for such rewards. As VentureBeat notes, such coupons or tokens could potentially be highly specific, allowing users to redeem them only for certain products or services, at certain locations or at certain times.

“The present invention is directed at least in part to a method and system for providing credits, vouchers or coupons representative of monetary value to users of mobile devices such as mobile telephones,” the patent reads. “The users of the mobile telephones are able to use the monetary value of the credits to purchase goods and/or services at e.g. point of sale terminals and the like.”

In addition to being transmitted to an actual point of sale system, credits would also be transferable via text message or over the web.

We should reiterate that this is just a patent, and a conservative estimate has Apple applying for 543-or-so patents a day. But it’s an interesting glimpse at the potential future of mPayments nonetheless.

To view the Apple’s patent application, click here.