| 摘要 |
A consumer-to-consumer lending system and method for digital content such as digital ebooks. The lending system invention enables a user who has purchased digital content to lend that content to another user. The lending system enables a lender to extend a lending offer to a lendee and a lendee to respond to the lending offer. A lendee may accept or reject a lending offer. Upon acceptance, the lending system provides the lent content to the lendee who controls the content until returning it, purchasing it or until a predetermined lending period expires. During the lending period the lender does not have access to the lent digital content item. The lending system assists a lender with initiating a lending offer, such as providing a pre-populated email form, and delivers the lend offer notification to the target lendee. Lending offers may be initiated and notifications received over common channels, including email systems, mobile devices, and web-based user accounts. The lending process can be initiated directly from a consumer device. |
| 主权项 |
1. A method for lending a digital content item from a lender to a lendee comprising:
receiving, at a lending server, a lending offer from the lender of the digital content item, the lending offer identifying at least the digital content item to be loaned and identifying the lendee, the lending server associating the lending offer with a lending offer ID; generating, by the lending server, a lending notice identifying at least the digital content item, wherein the lending notice comprises an email, the email including a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) by which the lendee can connect to the lending server, wherein the URL contains parameters including a combination of the lending offer ID and an encrypted security hash code; transmitting, by the lending server, the email to the lendee; preventing access by the lender to the digital content item after the lending notice has been transmitted; receiving, at a lending server, an acceptance or rejection of the lending offer from lendee; verifying, by the lending server, that the parameters contained in the URL used by the lendee matches an existing, valid, unexpired lending offer; and if the lendee has accepted the lending offer, the lending server providing the lendee with access to the digital content item and preventing access by the lender to the digital content item. |
