My company is active in the prepaid recharge industry. This primarily concerns
recharge of mobile prepaid cards and long distance prepaid cards.
These prepaid recharge cards has always been in a physical format,
which has meant that they require a physical distribution, i.e the
cards needs to be driven to the shops where they are sold. They can
then of course break, be stolen etc.

Between 5 and 10 years ago distributors started to connect the mobile
operators electronically directly to the point of sale. This is much
more efficent and now this market is changing rapidly. To distribute
these prepaid recharge cards electronically a electronic distribution
system (EVD) system is required.

In this market many companies has evolved and built their own systems.
Many of them have tried to patent all or parts of the phases of an EVD
transaction. I have found 4 companies with existing patents or pending
patents. Its however difficult to find which patents that are out
there and we haven't found or hasn't "come to the surface" yet.

So my question is: 

I'm interested in finding out what patents that are existing or
pending in the electronic prepaid recharge market focused on companies
selling mobile or long distance prepaid cards. 

It can be within other products if it is related to distributing PINS
in a digital format or providing online recharge to a POS. The reason
for searching is to find potential threats to our own EVD systems
existence in some markets.

Examples of the leading companies and their patents are:

Blackstone: The patent (No.: US 6,651,885), which was filed with the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in June 2000, covers not only the PIN
delivery for prepaid products, but also includes the areas of
?top-up?, loyalty, gift card and point of sale activations, as well as
real time reporting and the thermal card printing process - a true,
one stop prepaid solution.

Euronet/PaySpot: and its affiliates have obtained rights under CPI?s
licenses to U.S. Patents 5,511,114; 5,577,109; 5,721,768; and
6,502,745 for the provision of POS activation and recharge of stored
value cards and accounts. The first of these patents was filed in
1994.

EWI Prepaid
EWI FILES PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT RELATED TO PREPAID TRANSACTION TECHNOLOGY
Lawsuit is watershed event in the rapidly growing $50 billion global
prepaid industry where services are increasingly delivered using
real-time technologies. Tyler, TX (September 30, 2003) - - EWI
Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of payment processing services for
prepaid and cash payment transactions, announced that it has filed
suit in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas
against PRE Solutions, Inc., alleging that it infringed EWI?s U.S.
Patent No. 6,526,130, relating to the processing of prepaid
transactions through real-time PIN delivery solutions.

Good luck and thanks in advance!