This resolution considerations a way and system of sending a
pay as you go present card to different customers. Although the Board indicated that
the invention had a enterprise facet, the precise implementation of
the answer was technical and creative. Here are the sensible
takeaways from the choice T2040/14 (Providing prepaid gift cards to devices
with or without NFC capability/ MasterCard International
Incorporated) of February 12, 2021, of Technical Board of
Appeal 3.5.01:
Key takeaways
A delivered card is requested by one consumer for the advantage of
one other consumer, is a enterprise facet which is in line with
the COMVIK method given to the expert
individual as a non-technical requirement specification throughout the
framework of the above goal technical drawback.
Implementing a twin provisioning course of on a consumer’s cellular
telephone is a technical drawback.
Querying a devoted server to find out whether or not a cellular gadget
is NFC enabled and offering a pay as you go present card to gadgets with or
with out NFC capabilities is technical.
The invention
The European patent software considerations a way to allow
customers to buy and ship pay as you go present playing cards to different customers.
Depending on the recipient’s cell phone, the present card is
both despatched as a digital present card (computerized wi-fi funds
over an NFC connection) or as a bodily card.
This willpower is made by an over-the-air server (OTA)
server, which queries the telecommunications operations server if
the recipient’s cell phone quantity is NFC enabled or
in any other case. If the cell phone is NFC enabled, the OTA provisioning
server establishes a safe reference to the recipients’
telephone and supplies a tender card that can be utilized by an NFC
connection. If the recipient’s cell phone is just not NFC enabled,
the OTA server generates and sends the recipient an SMS together with a
card authorisation code which can be utilized to acquire a bodily present
card from a bodily retailer.
Fig. 1 of WO2010019670A2
Here is how the invention was outlined in declare 1:
Claim 1 (predominant request)
A methodology for electronically delivering a pay as you go card to a
cellular gadget (114,116), the tactic comprising:
receiving, at a service provider server (108) from a sender gadget (102,
104, 106), buy info associated to the acquisition of an
digital pay as you go card, whereby the acquisition info contains
recipient info related to a cellular gadget (114, 116)
supposed to obtain the digital pay as you go card;
receiving, at an over the air (OTA) provisioning server (112)
and from the service provider server (108), a provisioning request
together with digital pay as you go card info derived from the
buy info;
requesting, on the OTA provisioning server (112) and from a
telecommunications operations server (110), the kind of cellular
gadget (114, 116) related to the recipients cellular gadget
quantity;
figuring out, utilizing the cellular gadget sort info supplied
by the telecommunications operations server (110), whether or not the
cellular gadget (114, 116) is close to area communications (NFC)
enabled;
in response to figuring out that the cellular gadget (114,116) is
NFC enabled:
establishing a communications hyperlink with a cellular gadget (114)
related to tackle knowledge included within the digital pay as you go
card info; and provisioning the digital pay as you go card
info on the cellular gadget (114) over the communications hyperlink
through OTA communications, whereby the digital pay as you go card
info contains personalization knowledge that’s used to generate
a softcard pay as you go card within the NFC enabled cellular gadget (114) and
is transferrable from the cellular gadget (114) to a wi-fi gadget
reader (118) through NFC; and
in response to figuring out that the cellular gadget (114,116) is
not NFC enabled:
sending a pay as you go card authorization code related to the
digital pay as you go card to a brief message service (SMS) gateway
(113); and sending the pay as you go card authorization code from
the SMS gateway (113) to the non-NFC enabled cellular gadget
(116)
Is it patentable?
Both the Examining Division and the Board thought-about doc D2
(US-A-2008/0058014) because the closest prior artwork, which discloses a
system for offering tender playing cards to cellular gadgets enabling wi-fi
funds over an NFC connection.
The first occasion Examining division thought-about that the
technical facets of utilizing SMS know-how had been commonplace. The
remaining variations, particularly using a separate sender
gadget, had been thought-about to be apparent implementations of
enterprise-pushed non-technical facets.
However, the Board didn’t agree with the evaluation of the
Examining Division and the evaluation of :
3.4 In attraction, the Board thought-about that utilizing
separate sender and recipient gadgets was not simply an incidental
function, however a vital function of the
invention which needs to be thought-about when figuring out
the start line for creative step. Thus the Board most popular to
begin from the embodiment in D2 regarding WAP push provisioning
of pay as you go playing cards which deploys separate sender and recipient
gadgets.
The Board then summarised the distinguishing options as i/ii) a
service provider server, iii) a telecommunications server figuring out
whether or not the recipient’s gadget is NFC enabled, iv). the
provisioning over the communication hyperlink is in response to
figuring out that the gadget is NFC enabled and v/vii/viii). sending
a card authorisation through SMS if the gadget is just not NFC enabled.
With these because the distinguishing options, the Board then
separated the enterprise facets from the technical options as
follows:
3.5 The Board judges that the background to this invention,
particularly that a delivered card is requested by one consumer
for the advantage of one other consumer, is a enterprise
facet which is in line with the COMVIK method given to the expert
individual as a non-technical requirement specification throughout the
framework of the above goal technical drawback.
It might be additionally true that recognising that
offering pay as you go tender card personalisation knowledge to cell phones
that may use it and offering authorisation codes to ones that
can’t can be a non-technical facet. This is in impact
the scenario in T 1503/12; granny wouldn’t ship her grandson a
Ybox sport for his Xbox console – see factors 4.6 and 4.7.
Thus, the technical drawback is to implement the
twin provisioning course of on a consumer’s cellular
telephone.
Starting from doc D2, the Board agreed with the applicant
that the answer was not apparent:
3.7 It may properly be apparent to examine whether or not a cell phone is
NFC enabled as a way to determine whether or not the tender card
personalisation knowledge or the cardboard authorisation code needs to be
supplied.
However, the Board agrees with the appellant that
the apparent resolution could be to acquire this
info from the provisioning and cost software which, if
not already current, would should be put in on the cellular
telephone. In truth, utilizing this software for provisioning
card knowledge is the important thing facet of D2’s educating ([11] and
[23]).
3.8 The Board additionally agrees with the appellant that whereas D2
discloses a provisioning configuration server, storing
configuration info for a number of card issuers ([26]), and
implicitly that the push proxy gateway is used (see D12, factors 5
and 6), there is no such thing as a trace to adapt any of those servers
to supply upon request info on whether or not a cell phone is
NFC enabled.
D2 discloses that the provisioning and cost software
communicates with the provisioning configuration server to confirm
whether or not the cell phone is authorised for acquiring tender card knowledge
([42]). The Board agrees, nonetheless, with the appellant’s studying
of D2 and accepts that this step doesn’t contain acquiring from
the server info on the telephone’s {hardware} capabilities;
the one info obtained is a sign that the telephone was
authorised for receiving tender card knowledge.
Also, the overall educating in D12 that the push proxy gateway
could also be queried for capabilities of WAP shoppers (sections 6.6. and
7.2.6), is just not a powerful sufficient trace to acquire from the
push gateway particular info regarding the telephone’s NFC
functionality.
Finally, the Board determined that utilizing SMS to supply the code
was educating away from doc D2, and thus additionally not apparent:
3.9 As for offering the cardboard authorisation code in an SMS, the
Board judges that the expert individual would relatively present the code
utilizing the provisioning and cost software put in on the
cell phone within the NFC functionality willpower stage.
The Board considers that offering delicate card knowledge in an SMS
as a substitute of downloading it securely utilizing the provisioning and
cost software runs towards the important thing educating of D2 and the
expert individual wouldn’t do it with no trace in prior artwork.
However, D2 doesn’t give such a touch and really
teaches away from the claimed resolution. Paragraph [23]
states that the provisioning and cost software’s cost
performance is definitely not
important for the disclosed topic-matter which
relatively pertains to its provisioning performance. The expert
individual would derive from this that the authorisation code needs to be
downloaded utilizing the provisioning and cost software, even when
it can’t be used for wi-fi funds.
Therefore, the topic-matter was thought-about creative and the
case remitted to the primary occasion with an order to grant the
patent based mostly on the claims of the primary request.
The content material of this text is meant to supply a normal
information to the subject material. Specialist recommendation needs to be sought
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