Abstract: A highly-secure dispensing system, particularly for public utility products such as electricity, gas or district heating, requiring identifying information on both a «master» card and a «value» card to be found compatible before a quantity of the commodity can be dispensed which is commensurate with a value on the «value» card.

Abstract: Many new telephone services involve more customer-system interaction than ever before, and making these services easy to use and error-free is a major development goal. Properly designed dialing plans, announcements, timing, tones, and instructions increase customer acceptance and minimize errors. These new services are designed from systematic analyses of present services, interviews with customers, laboratory studies of user-system interactions, field trials, and product follow-ups. Calling Card Service automates credit card service and allows the customer to bill a call to a special billing number, without an operator, from Touch-Tone∗ dialing phones. Based on a series of studies, the market need for Calling Card Service was established and the customer-machine interface was designed. An analysis of operator-assisted credit card service indicated that credit card calls could be automated. Interviews with customers verified an interest in, and a need for, Calling Card Service. Moreover, laboratory studies indicated that customers could use the Calling Card Service successfully. In turn, these studies led to the design of a field trial, which combined and extended earlier studies and verified Calling Card Service performance and acceptance by customers.

Abstract: A sonorous card or sonorous transmitter (1), electronic and connectable to a telephone mouthpiece, having internally and permanently recorded in its memory a code corresponding to the numerical code of its user, a numerical keyboard so that the user fingers his security code and the control number of the desired function, it emits sonorous pulses which are picked up by the telephonic cartridge transmitting them to other terminal where the receiver is connected (2) and decodifying them in digits on a numerical display (2-A) at any distance, being used for telephone calls to be paid by the card's user, request of bank account balance by telephone, shopping by telephone, etc.

Abstract: A card having two adjacent magnetic tracks is used as a substitute for coins in activating laundry machines and the like. The first track is a data track encoded with a security code and pulses indicating a number of future uses of the card. The second track is a timing track used for both reading and writing encoded with square wave signals having a rate greater than the data rate on the first track and having the assertive edge coinciding with the start of pulses on the first track to strobe the first track to determine whether pulses are a "1" or a "0". The system re-encodes on the first track as the card leaves the machine one less number of uses of the card than when the card entered the machine, energizes a relay to start the laundry machine, and punches the card to indicate one use. A noise suppressor prevents re-encoding noise from affecting reading second track signals. The system employs a counter which is disabled so that the re-encoding cannot occur when the card enters the machine. The system uses a monostable multivibrator to activate both the laundry machine relay and the punch.

Abstract: This invention relates to metal-coated credit cards and to appliances for marking said credit cards in order to make deductions from the credit represented by the card. It is an object of the invention to provide such a card and marking appliance which can be used for an automatic accounting of services used for merchandise taken, such as copies taken from automatic copiers. For this purpose the metal-coated credit card which is adapted to be marked by a marking appliance in order to make deductions from the credit represented by the card has electrically conductive areas separated by electrically non-conducting areas. The credit card comprises a code-representing area, particularly at one edge of the card, and a credit-representing area which is spaced from the edges of the card and can be electrically marked in incremental areas in order to make deductions from the credit represented by the card.

Abstract: not available for EP0061722Abstract of corresponding document: US4417138This invention relates to metal-coated credit cards and to appliances for marking said credit cards in order to make deductions from the credit represented by the card It is an object of the invention to provide such a card and marking appliance which can be used for an automatic accounting of services used for merchandise taken, such as copies taken from automatic copiers For this purpose the metal-coated credit card which is adapted to be marked by a marking appliance in order to make deductions from the credit represented by the card has electrically conductive areas separated by electrically non-conducting areas The credit card comprises a code-representing area, particularly at one edge of the card, and a credit-representing area which is spaced from the edges of the card and can be electrically marked in incremental areas in order to make deductions from the credit represented by the card