NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Five new U.S. patents has developers working on ways for consumers to remotely order cash withdrawals, transmit payments and generate electronic checks from their ATMs simply by using their cell phones, Treos and iPhones.

Those solutions and other ways of interacting with ATMs directly from mobile devices–including physically locating the machines–will be the result of technology being developed through five U.S. patents granted recently to Diebold Inc., the ATM maker says.

"The know-how to marry mobile devices to ATMs has been lab-tested by Diebold's engineers and could be in users' hands within three to five years, facilitating faster ATM transactions and more of them, in more places and at more hours, with greater peace of mind," said Jim Block, director of global advanced technology at the Ohio-based corporation (www.diebold.com.)