Back to Archived News
Tyfone Receives Patent for Groundbreaking Mobile Electronic Wallet Technology
Monday, September 21, 2009
"Electronic Transaction Card" Patent Covers Key Technologies in Tyfone’s Award-Winning Secure Memory Card for Mobile Contactless Payments and Near Field Communications Solution
Portland, OR -- Tyfone (www.tyfone.com), a global provider of mobile financial services infrastructure and fully integrated mobile NFC payments/secure transaction capabilities, today announced the company was awarded a second patent for its innovations in smart card-based electronic wallet technology.
This newest patent, US 7,581,678, is entitled "Electronic Transaction Card."
Using time-varying magnetic fields, Tyfone’s patented technology enables the use of a memory card as an electronic wallet and/or the ability to use that memory card for the secure transmission of financial information. This groundbreaking technology is used in the company’s u4ia® (euphoria) Mobile Financial Services platform, which completed successful beta testing in June of this year.
In the growing contactless payment marketplace, Tyfone’s patented technologies and u4ia secure memory card platform enable a Trusted Service Manager (TSM) to bring scale to the ecosystem by enabling existing market-deployed handsets to become NFC ready. This leads to significant benefits to consumers and the key stakeholders such as banks, transportation companies, mobile operators and merchants, without change to the current ecosystem and without incurring significant cost to enable it.
Unlike other software-only technologies that refer to their application as an electronic wallet, Tyfone’s platform includes a neutral secure element -- thereby making it a true electronic container or "wallet." This solution allows a TSM to securely manage different consumer credit, debit, transportation and pre-paid accounts for use in a wide range of payment and other secure transactions.
A key application for Tyfone’s newly patented technology is using SideTapTM to conduct a contactless payment transaction. Using SideTap, consumers purchase goods at point of sale simply by tapping their mobile device at point of sale.
"To Tyfone, this patent is the culmination of tireless work developing a neutral solution not only as a viable implementation of NFC that can be broadly used today, but also as a truly game-changing technology," said Dr. Siva Narendra, chief technology officer at Tyfone. "As was demonstrated when initial testing was completed with the key stakeholders in the NFC value chain, Tyfone’s newly patented technology brings us one step closer to a ubiquitous contactless payment reality. Tyfone’s secure memory card technology is out of the R&D lab, has been tried and tested and is ready for the next stage in evolving the stakeholders’ existing business models into new revenue opportunities."
"Enabling near field communications without requiring design changes to the handset is the fastest way to proliferate contactless applications," said Patrick Gauthier, who launched Visa Paywave and is now CEO of SMC Advisors, a management consulting firm focused on emerging payments, mobile and e-commerce businesses. "Tyfone’s technology is critical to jump start NFC by providing a packaging that is familiar to the consumers, delivering a neutral secure element that is appropriate for banks and service providers, and enabling a new class of use cases that can drive revenue for operators."
About Tyfone
Tyfone connects money and mobility via a highly secure, scalable and flexible Mobile Financial Services (MFS) infrastructure that is tailored to meet the evolving needs of mobile network operators, transportation agencies, retailers and financial institutions. With its complete MFS platform and global alliance partners, Tyfone is uniquely qualified to deliver issuer-centric turnkey solutions with fully integrated contactless payments capabilities. To discover why Tyfone is becoming the partner of choice for MFS technologies to many of the world’s leading organizations, please visit www.tyfone.com.
Back to Archived News
