This patent describes a method for electronic commerce, similar in many respects to the application under consideration. In particular it includes an Internet charging mechanism. It is more specific in description in many aspects, than the application under consideration.

This prior art covers most or all the aspects of the application that concern royalty payment. Also, the methods described are immediately and obviously applicable to "offline" transactions in the definition of the application. (The first and second devices in fact form a network between each other for the duration of each communication transfer, so "offline" is with respect to the parts of the described method that are not the two devices, making the distinction irrelevant in this comparison.)