G-Pay

Google patent has come to light related to mobile payments. The so-called “GPay” patent doesn’t propose a direct Paypal competitor, however: instead, it covers a text message-based payments system. The patent was filed on February 28, 2006 and published on August 30, 2007. Google already holds a patent for a cross-platform micropayments system.

Google’s Eric Schmidt said back in March 2006 that GPay is “not made to compete with PayPal or to replace existing peer to peer payment systems but that it’s meant to be a new solution to a new problem.” However, that occurred right as Paypal launched its own mobile payments service, and it’s possible that Schmidt refers to the entire Google payments system (including Google Checkout) as GPay, not just this latest patent application.

Regardless, the patent covers:

A computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic on-line payment includes receiving at a computer server system a text message from a payor containing a payment request representing a payment amount sent by a payor device operating independently of the computer server system, determining a payment amount associated with the text message and debiting a payor account for an amount corresponding to the amount of the payment request, and crediting an account of a payee that is independent of the computer server system.

I think it’s generous to say this isn’t a Paypal competitor, since Paypal is clearly keen to dominate mobile payments. We’ll wait and see what product, if any, materializes from the patent.

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