The technological advancement in the last two decades, have allowed for an evolution in the acquisition of goods and/or services, both physical and digital which has facilitated its purchase and delivery, regardless of the geographical location of the buyer user. For example, currently, the acquisition of various electronic goods such as music, videos, films, series and/or television programs, etc., can be done through the purchase of prepaid cards, which are acquired through a point of sale terminal of some establishment, where said prepaid card has a code that allows it the user to access the electronic good in the portal of the corresponding company.
An example of the above can be found in European Patent Application No. EP 1 519 332 A1, which discloses a method and system for providing digital content to consumers using a prepaid digital content medium. The method includes receiving unique identification information associated with the prepaid digital content medium (PDCM) from a PDCM distributor. Once a buyer has acquired a PDCM, the unique identification information associated with said PDCM is sent to an authentication service provider and the PDCM is activated based on said identification information. The authentication service provider sends an activation confirmation of the PDCM to the digital content provider in response to a confirmation request from said digital content provider, wherein the digital content provider sends a confirmation request in response to a request of digital content by a consumer who has acquired the PDCM.
The system above described gives the buyer the possibility to dispose and use the electronic good immediately after the transaction with the digital content provider is completed. In one of its modalities, said system uses prepaid cards that the user acquires in a physical establishment, which constitutes a limitation for the sales of the establishment, since the establishment has a “limited” number of cards to sell and in the case in which they are terminated, the user could not acquire the electronic good in said establishment. Therefore, the establishment must keep in physical stock, the prepaid cards of the digital content provider for sale to the public.
In the state of the art, we can find, in addition to the above prepaid cards, the use of printed codes in a purchase ticket, (known as “pin on receipt”), which is another way in which a user can purchase a code to access digital content from a provider. An example of this is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,613,237, which comprises a system and method for providing a personal identification number (PIN) printed on a receipt by a customer terminal. The method includes storing at the client terminal, receipt formats that are sent from a server for various prepaid services from a plurality of prepaid service providers. The method further includes receiving, at the client terminal, a request for a PIN associated with one or more of the various prepaid services. The requested PIN and other information associated with one or more of the various prepaid services is displayed or printed according to one or more of the receipt formats for its reception and dispensing by the customer terminal.
The method above described eliminates the use of prepaid cards, which entails that the trade in question is no longer limited to the physical stock of said cards and has “unlimited” availability for the sale of codes to the user.
However, said method is limited to the user moving to the location where the point of sale terminal is located. In addition, there is a risk that the user may damage or misplace the receipt where the PIN is printed, and in case this happens, it is not possible for the user to receive the PIN printed again at the establishment where he acquired it. Another disadvantage of the above described method is that there is a need for a printer, whether thermal, dot matrix, inkjet or laser, whereby the ability to generate sales in the establishments is limited to having a device that allows printing the access code and instructions for use.
The technological advance and the decrease in the costs of physical electronic products such as cell phones and tablets, have allowed its massification in our society, which means that most of the people currently have an equipment and assigned cell phone number. That is why many companies and organizations since a few years began to develop digital systems that allow the sending of notifications to the user cell phone number, which may contain information on an action or a code.
Particularly, some banks have the service of sending the personal identification number (PIN) to their users via SMS type electronic messages, which prevents the user from having to physically move to the branch of the bank to obtain the PIN. With this, the user can promptly have his PIN for activation of a credit or debit card. However, this system is limited to sending these numbers for specific use in the services and products offered by the issuing bank.
Accordingly, in the state of the art, to date there is no efficient system that allows the acquisition of electronic products and/or services by means of a code that is sent to a user device through an electronic message, which allows the user to have immediate access to the product and/or service, when acquired through the server portal of the provider.