PayRange Wins Patents For Mobile POS Offers Retrofit Vending Technology

PORTLAND, OR -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued PayRange Inc. two additional patents covering inventive portions of its technology, the high-tech vending payments company reported.

The first patent covers PayRange's "offers" platform, introduced a year ago. PayRange Offers is described as a method of providing point-of-sales offers on a vending machine through a mobile app. It includes a barcode scan to validate a selected offer.

The program offers discounts and promotions at targeted vending machines for specific products on all vending machines equipped with PayRange. As a result, consumer packaged goods companies can promote their products in vending machines in much the same way they promote them in traditional retail. Operators still receive full price for the vended item, while consumers receive rebates for discounts once the offer is validated. Additionally, a vending operator can use the PayRange Offers to drive sales in machines independent of manufacturer participation. | READ MORE

The second patent covers a method for retrofitting an offline vending machine to accept electronic payments without a network connection. PayRange enables cashless vending payments by connecting to a patron's smartphone over a Bluetooth personal-area network. The vending machine therefore does not need its own Internet connection. A BluKey device is installed in a vending machine to enable PayRange transactions.

Since its startup two years ago, PayRange has filed for more than two dozen patents.