Chase Card Services has announced that it recently received a patent (US 7,480,631) from the United States Patent Office for its fraud prevention technology, First Watch Intelligence. READ MORE

Josh Lerner, the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, has published a working paper titled "The Litigation of Financial Innovations" that examines the litigation of patents relating to financial products and services which he finds are litigated at a much higher rate than that of patents as a whole.

Broox Peterson writes on his Payments Industry Regulation blog about the recent United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision in the Bilski case that "snugged up the standards for patent eligibility of business processes and methods that had been loosened by its 1998 decision in State Street Bank & Trust vs. Signature Financial Corp." Broox notes: "The ultimate impact of In re: Bilski on the future of patents in the financial and payments industries is not clear yet, but it is important that the decision did not reject the patentability of business processes or software altogether."

The Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has published a Working Paper by Robert M. Hunt titled "Business Method Patents and U.S. Financial Services" . READ MORE

Jeffrey Birnbaum writes for the Washington Post about legislation that is pending in the US Senate that would "prevent a small Texas company called DataTreasury from collecting damages from banks for infringing on its patented method for digitally scanning, sending and archiving checks."

A Japanese inventor, Shigeru Arisawa of Tokyo, was issued US patent 7,311,246 on Dec. 25 for a "method and system of transmitting electronic value information between terminals." The patent has been assigned to Sony Corporation.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has published two working papers related to patents and financial services. The first is titled "Business Method Patents for U.S. Financial Services" (PDF) by Robert M. Hunt and the second is titled "Intellectual Property Rights and Standard Setting in Financial Services: The Case of the Single European Payments Area" (PDF) by Robert M. Hunt, Samuli Simojoki, and Tuomas Takalo.

Bill Slawski writes on his SEO by the Sea blog about a US patent application (20070203836) filed on February 28, 2006 that was published this past Thursday. The patent application is titled "Text Message Payment" and Slawski says was filed by Google and inventor Ramy Dodin. A PDF of the patent application (including diagrams) is available at PatentFetcher.

Brent Bowers reports for the New York Times on the recent decision in a patent litigation case between AdvanceMe and AmeriMerchant. In its decision in the case, the court found the patent to be invalid because it was "obvious and anticipated." AmeriMerchant's David Goldin is profiled in Bowers' article. Goldin also has his own blog - called the "Merchant Cash Advance Blog" where he provides more background on the litigation.

NetDeposit has announced "it has been awarded two new patents, Nos. 7,181,430 and 7,216,106, from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the processes and technologies involved in remote electronic presentment of all types of checks. The patents cover NetDeposit's array of software products and services, which enable electronic check presentment and payment."

We're fans of Google's Patent search service and its fast and easy searches of issued US patents. Google recently added a "Download PDF" option to the service that allows you to quickly save a copy of a patent that you've found of interest. Here's an example: US Patent 6,341,724 titled "Cardless Payment System".

First Data Corp and PrivaSys have announced a "long-term licensing agreement that sets the stage for First Data to become a clear leader in the processing of contactless and other emerging payments for its clients - both financial institutions and merchants - around the world."

Evolution Benefits has announced that is has been granted a patent for its technology used in the substantiation of health benefits debit card transactions. The company’s patent, U.S. Patent 7,174,302 titled “System and Method for Processing Flexible Spending Account Transactions,” refers to the system and method EB developed for real time substantiation of card transactions prior to authorizing payment.

DataTreasury Corporation has announced a worldwide licensing agreement with Diebold for the use of four of the company's financial transaction patents relating to "technologies involved in the electronic processing of checks and other financial instruments and include claims related to the capture, transmission, encryption, storing and retrieval of electronic images generated from these types of documents."

IBM has been awarded US patent number 7,128,274 titled "Secure credit card with near field communications" (PDF). The patent was filed by inventors Edward E. Kelley and Franco Motika.

Julie Creswell writes for the New York Times about activity at many banks and financial services firms to patent various financial processes and technologies.

In the following article, attorney Broox Peterson takes a look at business method patents - which have been particularly important to the payments industry - and a recent US Supreme Court decision to hear an appeal of a business method patent case that could be bad news for so-called "patent trolls".

The American Conference Institute has announced an upcoming conference being held in New York City on June 6-7 titled "The National Forum on Optimizing Patents and IP in Financial Products & Services".

Yahoo! has been issued US Patent No. 7,031,939 for "systems and methods for implementing person-to-person money exchange" based upon a filing dated August 15, 2000.

Entrust has announced filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Palo Alto-based Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union related to an authentication solution for the credit union is using with its customers which Entrust considers an infringement on its grid authentication patent.

Jeff Nesmith writes for the Cox News Service about companies like Acacia Research who pursue patent infringement claims on behalf of some small inventors. One of the Nesmith's examples is Paul Ware, inventor of U.S. Patent No. 4,707,592, issued Nov. 17, 1987: "A financial card transaction system for protecting the financial transactions against fraud.''

China Martens reports for the IDG News Service that Amazon.com will pay $40 million to Soverain Software "to settle two lawsuits alleging patent infringement."

Patent attorney Dennis Crouch blogs about a strategy some financial services firm utilize to prevent publication of their patent applications.

Financial institutions have a history of being quite secretive in their practices.  In one sense, this practice stops with the emergence of the patentability option.  In order to obtain a patent, an inventor must publicly disclose the details of the invention.  However, many institutions are opting to request that at least the patent application be left unpublished in order to maintain secrecy of the patent until the date the patent is issued (if ever).

Pay By Touch has announced that it has acquired a new patent portfolio of issued US patents for additional biometric payment solutions.

"Our acquisition of the issued patent covering biometric authentication of check-cashing and our recently announced alliance with global transaction processing leader Certegy brings a compelling proposition to our check-cashing authentication services," said John Rogers, founder, chairman and CEO of Pay By Touch. "This acquisition is indicative of our market momentum as retailers and shoppers continue to sign up for Pay By Touch."

BioPay announced today that it has filed suit against Solidus Networks, Inc. d/b/a/ Pay By Touch, and Indivos Corporation.

BioPay's lawsuit, filed January 18, 2005, involves patents on the use of biometric technology in point-of-sale transactions. BioPay asks the court to declare patents held by Pay By Touch to be invalid and also asks the court to declare that BioPay has not infringed on Pay By Touch's patents.

Retail Decisions (ReD) has announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has stated that it will re-examine the granting of US patent 6,029,154 that is the subject of an infringement claim by CyberSource against Retail Decisions.

The USPTO’s decision is in response to a re-examination request submitted by ReD, following the discovery (by ReD) of “prior art” that pre-dates the Cybersource patent.

US Patent 6,029,154, titled "Method and system for detecting fraud in a credit card transaction over the internet", was filed by inventor John Pettitt on July 28, 1997 and issued on February 22, 2000.

Jennifer Kingson reports in the New York Times on DataTreasury Corporation, a Melville, NY-based company that has sued others, including several banks and processors, for patent infringement.

DataTreasury, for its part, said in court filings that the two patents were the brainchild of its founder, an inventor named Claudio Ballard. The filings are silent on Mr. Ballard's professional credentials and background, but they do assert that he met at least once with people from J. P. Morgan Chase and that they appropriated his ideas.

William Bulkeley reports in today's Wall St. Journal (subs. reqd.) on a patent infringement lawsuit filed against Dell by DE Techologies of Blacksburg, VA.

Its founder and chief executive, Ed Pool, said that ultimately DE Technologies hopes to license its patent to multinational companies in return for a small percentage of the value of their international shipments -- a sum that could collectively amount to billions of dollars.

Our quick search of the Patent Database brought up the following patent: Universal Shopping Center for International Operation. The patent was filed in December 1997 and issued October 1, 2002.

CyberSource announced today that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Retail Decisions alleging that Retail Decisions' eBitGuard product uses technology covered by CyberSource's US Patent No. 6,029,154, "Method and System for Detecting Fraud in a Credit Card Transaction Over the Internet".

Washington Mutual has announced that it has received a US patent on its full-service branch bank design. READ MORE