A METHOD FOR ACCESSING SERVICES

The present invention relates to a method for accessing services at a terminal on the basis of entitlements, and in particular the means for delivering the entitlements.

Advanced payment for services, so called 'pre-pay', is popular with both consumers and service providers, such as for mobile phone and Internet services. For example, a consumer purchases an amount of service in advance, typically at a retail point-of-sale. In return the consumer receives a generic token, such as a voucher or card, containing one or more entitlements corresponding to the purchased amount of service; an appealing feature of such a token is that the consumer has the choice to remain anonymous to the service provider. The consumer then couples the token to a suitable terminal in order to read the entitlements and access the service. As one example, in the UK a pre-pay mobile phone service token comprises a sixteen digit number which is then entered into (coupled to) the mobile phone using the keypad of the phone, a procedure which can be prone to error. Other forms of token comprise machine readable cards, for example credit card sized cards comprising an embedded chip containing entitlement data. These and similar tokens require a corresponding mechanical and electrical reader interface at the terminal to couple the card to the terminal. Such requirements can limit the freedom of the terminal designer and also mean the consumer has yet another dedicated card to handle day to day. Furthermore, to adapt a currently received service typically requires the consumer to exchange tokens in the reader interface at the terminal. To switch to a different service again typically requires the consumer to exchange tokens in the reader interface, or to obtain a token supporting both services (rarely available where services are from different providers, due to the need to compete in the marketplace). It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved means of delivering entitlements to access services.

In accordance with the present invention there is provided a method for accessing a service on the basis of entitlements comprising : - conveying the entitlements to a terminal using a plurality of data carriers, each data carrier conveying at least a respective one of the entitlements; - receiving the entitlements from the data carriers; and - accessing the service in accordance with the received entitlements; wherein at least one entitlement is conveyed to the terminal by means of a contactless data carrier. The term 'contactless data carrier' as used herein refers to a physical data carrier able to convey data representing entitlements to a reader by means of a contactless data interface. The term 'entitlements' refers to data which is associated with one or more services for the purpose of allowing access to those services. Advantageously, the contactless data carrier does not require a corresponding mechanical reader interface at the terminal to couple the carrier to the terminal, allowing the terminal designer more freedom. Although in principle any wireless interface technology may be used to interface to the contactless data carrier, preferred wireless technologies are short range thereby requiring the contactless data carrier to' be at least physically proximate to the reader interface at the terminal so as not to interfere with or be recognised by adjacent systems. Such technologies have become to be termed Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies and include low power RF, Infrared and ultrasound. Preferably, the NFC technology Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is used for a contactless data carrier, such as described in the applicant's co-pending European Patent Application number EP0312319.5 filed on July 28 2003. According to the present invention, a service is accessed in accordance with entitlements, the entitlements being conveyed using a plurality of data carriers. The term 'service' used herein includes aspects or attributes of a service such as types of content, performance levels and the like. A currently accessed service may be adapted according to further entitlements conveyed using at least one further data carrier, for example a standard service is enhanced (permanently or temporarily) by the provision of one or more data carriers containing one or more entitlements which allow access to the enhancement. In a second example, entitlements are arranged so that access to service B is conditional on entitlements being present or absent in relation to another service A. In this way current access to service A can enable access to service B by simply using additional appropriate data carriers, which carriers may be provided on a sale or promotional basis. Alternatively, only by currently not accessing service A (by detecting absence of entitlements thereto) will access to service B be allowed; this could provide for example a method of parental control in which use of data carriers containing entitlements to access content intended for children can disable concurrent access to content intended for adults. The options described permit a service provider to provide entitlements in a modular way, for example the end user obtains one or more contactless data carriers as necessary containing entitlements to the desired service or services. By way of example, a service provider makes available a first data carrier containing entitlements to access a basic level of service; the provider then provides further contactless data carriers, in the form of RFID tags, which respectively provide different services and/or levels of service with respect to the basic level. The consumer can then select those tags which provide access to desired content, level of service and the like, for example a tag for TV content, another for premium broadband Internet access, and so on. The tags selected by the consumer may be used independently or in a suitable combination, as determined by the service provider; for example a tag providing access to an Internet AV streaming service could cooperate with a tag allowing fast datarate communication with an Internet Service Provider. Advantageously, a contactless data carrier such as an RFID tag can be positioned within or outside the range of a reader, thereby allowing the consumer to easily regulate usage and/or access to the service or services accessed using the tag. In the present example, a tag can be made to operate (placed in range of the reader) or not operate (moved out of range of the reader) at the will of the user; such a process being also easy for the user to understand and use. According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for performing the method of the invention, comprising: - a contactless data carrier comprising at least one entitlement; - a reader operable to read entitlements from at least one contactless data carrier; - a terminal operable to: o receive entitlements from the reader; and o access a service in accordance with the received entitlements. Advantageously, the reader is operable to read more than one data carrier. This may be performed sequentially, but preferably contemporaneously such that positioning a carrier within or outside the range of the reader constitutes respectively providing or denying its entitlement(s) to the terminal. As an example, Philips MIFARE® RFID technology supports such operation, by contemporaneously reading multiple MIFARE® devices in range of a compatible reader. Advantageously, the use of a contactless data carrier in the form of a RFID device enables a product incorporating (hosting) an RFID device to also be used in the system; examples of host products include portable products, PDAs, mobile phones, and the like. Use of such products can reduce the number of separate RFID devices a consumer needs to manage. One example is where an RFID device is incorporated into a mobile phone. The consumer can then place the phone in range of the reader to access services according to entitlements contained within the RFID tag of the phone. Furthermore, the configuration (e.g. entitlements) can be adapted by means of a host product, for example a mobile phone equipped with an RFID device can use its air interface (e.g. GSM) to update entitlements in the RFID device. This has the further advantage of also solving an issue for the service provider : that of updating / refreshing the contactless data carrier (in this case the RFID device). Alternatively, for a standalone contactless data carrier, when its entitlements are spent, the data carrier could be updated at a retail point-of- sale or similar station, or simply discarded. The latter option requires use of a low cost contactless data carrier, such as an RFID device. RFID devices can be embedded into a suitable host medium or product, for example a sheet of paper, a plastic card or other physical platform. The terminal may also be able to access entitlements from other data carriers, such as local or remote storage, including a server on a network, such as the Internet. The entitlements available locally may be programmed at manufacture of the terminal or downloaded to the terminal using conventional methods, via a network connection or by using optical/magnetic media. The use of data carriers to convey entitlements avoids user error. For a currently accessed service, advantageously additional services and/or enhancements to that service can be provided using further data carriers providing the necessary entitlements to provide a large range of service combinations for a correspondingly smaller set of data carriers. Advantageously, use of contactless data carriers allows design freedom and, in the case RFID tags, the short range operation and ability to read several such tags contemporaneously provides ease of use and operation for the end user.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 shows a method for accessing a service on the basis of entitlements; Figure 2 shows a system for accessing a service on the basis of entitlements; Figures 3a and 3b show entitlements for levels within services; and Figure 4 shows examples of products comprising contactless data carriers for use in the system of Figure 2. Figure 1 shows a method, at 100, for accessing a service on the basis of entitlements. Entitlements allow access to for example types of content, levels of service (e.g. basic, enhanced, premium) and, possibly, also according to types of user such as parent, child/minor. Such examples clearly yield many possible combinations. Traditional prior art systems typically use a single data carrier per combination and find it difficult to offer customised service options due to technical, logistical and cost issues. The method starts at 102 and entitlements related to a particular type of content, service level, or the like are conveyed 104 to a user terminal using a plurality of data carriers. Examples of data carriers include smart cards, optical/magnetic media and wired or wireless download from a local area network, LAN or wide area network WAN (including the Internet). One or more entitlements may also be present in local storage (data carrier) accessible to the terminal, for example conveyed in the terminal software as shipped. However, for operational flexibility, entitlements are preferably conveyed to the terminal after shipping. In particular, at least one entitlement is conveyed to the terminal by means of a contactless data carrier. It is also possible to convey to the terminal entitlements by means of more than one contactless data carrier, each containing one or more entitlements. However conveyed to the terminal, entitlements 108 are received 106, for example by reading each data carrier sequentially in turn. Preferably, where more than one contactless data carrier is used to convey entitlements for a service, entitlements from these contactless data carriers are received substantially contemporaneously by the terminal. This enables a user to readily select or identify those contactless data carriers necessary to access a desired service. In the case where contactless data carriers are left in place for the duration of access to the service, the terminal is able to maintain communication with the contactless data carrier, for example to verify the contactless data carrier is still present (thereby maintaining service provision according to the entitlements of that contactless data carrier) or to modify the entitlements (for example, register consumption of metered entitlements). Finally, a service is accessed 110 according to the received entitlements. Clearly, a terminal can receive entitlements which enable more than one service to be accessed. The method ends at step 112. Figure 2 shows a system, at 200, for accessing a service on the basis of entitlements. The system comprises a reader 202 for reading one or more contactless data carriers 212, 214, 216 positioned within communication range 218 of the reader. Contactless data carriers utilise wireless communication with the reader, for example RF, IR and ultrasound. Preferably, the wireless communication range 218 is sufficiently short allowing a user to couple a contactless data carrier to the reader by physically positioning the contactless data carrier proximate to the reader. Suitable technologies include those termed Near Field Communication (NFC) which include short range RF (e.g. Bluetooth), infrared (e.g. IrDA), inductive or capacitive based communication. A preferred NFC technology is RFID since this is low cost (an important factor for pre-paid or promotional service provision), has short range (typically up to 100mm) is physically robust and power free permitting zero maintenance for the end user. An example of a suitable RFID technology is MIFARE® from Philips. Entitlements 210 read by the reader 202 are provided to a terminal 204. Clearly, the reader can be separate to, or integrated within, the terminal. The terminal may also receive one or more entitlements 208 from local store 206 acting as a data carrier; such one or more entitlements being originally shipped with the terminal or provided to the terminal via optical/magnetic media (CD, floppy disk, etc.) or via a network download (including from the Internet, or from a service provider server) in known fashion. Based on the received entitlements, the terminal accesses one or more services 224 from server 220. In addition, where the received entitlements allow, the terminal can access one or more services 226 from server 222. An example of a service provided by server 220 or 222 comprises AV content streamed from respective stores 228 or 230. In a further example, a service comprises broadband Internet access at a range of service levels defined in terms of a combination of download bandwidth, content type, connection time, and the like. Where entitlements are provided using a number of contactless data carriers a user can dynamically present the contactless data carriers to the reader to access the service and/or service level currently desired, as shown in Figure 2 in which entitlements conveyed by contactless data carriers 212, 214, 216 are contemporaneously read by reader 202 since the carriers are all within communication range 218 of the reader. Figures 3a and 3b show entitlements for levels within services. Figure 3a shows a simple example in which a data carrier 302 (for example store 206 of Figure 2) provides entitlements 306 for a standard broadband internet service, perhaps comprising basic download access rate of 128kbits/sec. By in addition also receiving entitlements 308 contained within a contactless data carrier comprising RFID tag 304, a faster access rate can be obtained by a terminal. The RFID tag 304 may be read only once to enhance the service, such as to provide a time-limited connection and/or quantity- limited data download. Alternatively, the RFID tag 304 may be repeatedly read such that it provides entitlement only when in range of the reader; in this way a user can enable or disable the entitlement simply by placing the RFID tag within or out of range of the reader. Metering the consumption of entitlements can be performed locally by the terminal or remotely by the service provider using techniques known to the skilled person. Figure 3b shows a more complex example. Two services are shown: broadband internet and TV. Each service has three distinct levels (for example based on content type or performance), as shown in the columns. Once the user has access to the basic service entitlement 310 and/or 312 (conveyed by any suitable data carrier, as described earlier), entitlements to each additional service level could be conveyed to the terminal (e.g. 204 in Figure 2) using a further contactless data carrier (such as an individual RFID tag), in the example yielding three combinations for each service category from their respective two contactless data carriers (314, 318 and 316, 320). Clearly, each additional contactless data carrier yields an approximate doubling of possible service combinations. This is attractive to service operators since it effectively limits the number of data carriers whilst providing a large set of options within a service or across services. Furthermore, a particular service combination could be offered on a limited trial or other promotional basis without the end user having to subscribe to another service, or causing logistical problems for the promoter - a dedicated contactless data carrier containing the promotional service level entitlement is all that is needed. Data carriers may contain one or more entitlements according to the needs of the service provider. The ability of RFID tags to be read contemporaneously provides an easy means for a user to access required entitlements without requiring any adaptation of the reader or terminal, or special set-up procedures to be invoked. Furthermore, they are low cost and therefore very suited for promotional use. Figure 4 shows examples of products comprising contactless data carriers for use in a system embodying the invention. A card 402 comprising RFID device 404 containing entitlements to one or more services and/or service levels. Entitlements from one or more of these contactless data carriers can be read sequentially or contemporaneously. A contactless data carrier can be embedded within a host product, for example an RFID device 408 within a mobile phone 406. Of course, host products also permit use of other types of NFC technology, such as Bluetooth, IrDA and the like. An advantage of RFID technology embedded in a host product is that operation in the context of the invention does not require power from the host product, or that any of the functions of the host product be operational (e.g. the telephony function of a host mobile phone can be switched off, whilst not affecting the ability to read its embedded RFID device). The foregoing method and implementations are presented by way of examples only and represent a selection of a range of methods and implementations that can readily be identified by a person skilled in the art to exploit the advantages of the present invention. In the description above and with reference to Figure 1, there is provided a method for accessing a service on the basis of entitlements allowing access to the service. The method comprises conveying 104 the entitlements to a terminal using a plurality of data carriers, each carrier conveying at least one of the entitlements, receiving 106 the entitlements 108 from the data carriers, and accessing 110 the service in accordance with the received entitlements, wherein at least one entitlement is conveyed to the terminal by means of a contactless data carrier. Preferably the contactless data carrier uses RFID technology which is low cost, robust in use and allows entitlements from a number of such contactless data carriers to be read contemporaneously when they are placed within range of the receiver. In this way a broad range of services can be accessed using suitable combinations of contactless data carriers.