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European Patent Application: 07815833.4
System and Method for Verifying a User's Identity in Electronic Transactions
The Appeal hearing on this application has just concluded with a decision to dismiss the appeal, which means that the application has been refused.
(email from attorney, Matthew Howell a partner of Hastletine, Lake and Kempner in the United Kingdom, received on July 20, 2023)
"The discussion with the Board was constructive. They listened carefully to our submissions and understood that the separation of the verifier from the verification requestor (e.g. a bank) was different from the closest prior art document D1 (WO2005/001670). They also engaged positively with Stuart’s explanation of the system.
In addition to the separation concept, we also discussed with the Board the unidirectional communication feature of the invention, in which communications to the user device from the verifier, and communications from the verifier to the user device are separated (as indicated by the single pointed arrows in Figure 3 of the application). The Board again understood that this was a difference between the Verify system and the D1 prior art, but indicated that the application as originally filed does not contain sufficient detail on this feature to support a claim amendment to this feature, or sustain an argument that this feature provides an inventive step.
These discussions took around two hours, at which point the Board took a break to consider and come to a view on the invention.
After a long deliberation of about 45 minutes, the Board came to the conclusion that the separation of the verification requestor and the verifier, and the associated features relating to pre-enrolling the user with the verifier (by storing the user access number and PIN in the verifier database) and pre-enrolling the user account (by setting a flag at the verification requestor indicating whether the identity verification steps should be performed), do not amount to anything more than routine design options.
Thus the Board concluded that the claimed invention is obvious and therefore not patentable.
The decision to dismiss the appeal was then announced, and the chairman of the Board thanked us for the way the case was presented.
Obviously this is not the outcome we wanted, but it was not unexpected in view of the negative preliminary opinion of the Board of Appeal.
The Board will in due course issue a written decision and minutes of the appeal hearing. I will forward those to you when I receive them."
Matthew Howell, Partner Haseltine Lake Kempner LLP One Portwall Square, Portwall Lane, Bristol BS1 6BH, United Kingdom
(email from patent author, Stewart Goodin in Canada, received on July 20, 2023)
"We went in to the ring and our very best was presented. Hundreds of hours of my time let alone the lawyers and other members of the board of Verify, humbly I was not able to correct the language in the patent enough to allow a continuation. This being said the review board understood the merits of our
patent and that it was a better system but after more than an hour of time deliberating, they had to say the wording just was not there. I apologize, but no one else could have given better wording to the arguments. The Lawyer for Verify did a spectacular piece of seeking a way though the misunderstanding
of the original patent application wording. It seems a shame that when it comes down to it language was the problem and the misunderstanding of the language of the design was our down fall in the writing of the original document.
Thank you everyone for more than a valiant effort."
Stewart IT Services
Stewart Goodin .PAT
6582 Holly Park Drive
Delta B.C.
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