This choice issues a technique and system of sending a pay as you go reward card to different customers. Although the Board indicated that the invention had a enterprise facet, the precise implementation of the answer was technical and ingenious. 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 person for the good thing about one other person, is a enterprise facet which is in accordance to the COMVIK method given to the expert individual as a non-technical requirement specification throughout the framework of the above goal technical downside.
Implementing a twin provisioning course of on a person’s mobile cellphone is a technical downside.
Querying a dedicated server to determine whether a mobile device is NFC enabled and offering a pay as you go reward card to units with or with out NFC capabilities is technical.
The invention
The European patent utility issues a technique to allow customers to buy and ship pay as you go reward playing cards to different customers. Depending on the recipient’s mobile cellphone, the reward card is both despatched as a digital reward 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 mobile cellphone quantity is NFC enabled or in any other case. If the mobile cellphone is NFC enabled, the OTA provisioning server establishes a safe reference to the recipients’ cellphone and supplies a delicate card that can be utilized by an NFC connection. If the recipient’s mobile cellphone is not NFC enabled, the OTA server generates and sends the recipient an SMS together with a card authorisation code which can be utilized to receive a bodily reward card from a bodily retailer.
Fig. 1 of WO2010019670A2
Here is how the invention was outlined in declare 1:
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 delicate playing cards to mobile units enabling wi-fi funds over an NFC connection.
The first occasion Examining division thought-about that the technical points of utilizing SMS expertise have been commonplace. The remaining variations, particularly using a separate sender device, have been thought-about to be apparent implementations of business-driven non-technical points.
However, the Board didn’t agree with the evaluation of the Examining Division and the evaluation of :
3.4 In enchantment, the Board thought-about that utilizing separate sender and recipient units was not simply an incidental characteristic, however an important characteristic of the invention which needs to be thought-about when figuring out the place to begin for ingenious step. Thus the Board most popular to begin from the embodiment in D2 relating to WAP push provisioning of pay as you go playing cards which deploys separate sender and recipient units.
The Board then summarised the distinguishing options as i/ii) a service provider server, iii) a telecommunications server figuring out whether the recipient’s device is NFC enabled, iv). the provisioning over the communication hyperlink is in response to figuring out that the device is NFC enabled and v/vii/viii). sending a card authorisation by way of SMS if the device is not NFC enabled.
With these because the distinguishing options, the Board then separated the enterprise points from the technical options as follows:
3.5 The Board judges that the background to this invention, specifically that a delivered card is requested by one person for the good thing about one other person, is a enterprise facet which is in accordance to the COMVIK method given to the expert individual as a non-technical requirement specification throughout the framework of the above goal technical downside.
It is in all probability additionally true that recognising that offering pay as you go delicate card personalisation knowledge to mobile telephones that may use it and offering authorisation codes to ones that can’t is additionally a non-technical facet. This is in impact the scenario in T 1503/12; granny wouldn’t ship her grandson a Ybox recreation for his Xbox console – see factors 4.6 and 4.7.
Thus, the technical downside is to implement the twin provisioning course of on a person’s mobile cellphone.
Starting from doc D2, the Board agreed with the applicant that the answer was not apparent:
3.7 It may effectively be apparent to examine whether a mobile cellphone is NFC enabled so as to resolve whether the delicate card personalisation knowledge or the cardboard authorisation code needs to be offered.
However, the Board agrees with the appellant that the apparent resolution could be to receive this data from the provisioning and fee utility which, if not already current, would wish to be put in on the mobile cellphone. In truth, utilizing this utility for provisioning card knowledge is the important thing facet of D2’s instructing ([11] and [23]).
3.8 The Board additionally agrees with the appellant that whereas D2 discloses a provisioning configuration server, storing configuration data 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 trace to adapt any of those servers to present upon request data on whether a mobile cellphone is NFC enabled.
D2 discloses that the provisioning and fee utility communicates with the provisioning configuration server to confirm whether the mobile cellphone is authorised for acquiring delicate 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 data on the cellphone’s {hardware} capabilities; the one data obtained is a sign that the cellphone was authorised for receiving delicate card knowledge.
Also, the final instructing in D12 that the push proxy gateway could also be queried for capabilities of WAP shoppers (sections 6.6. and seven.2.6), is not a sturdy sufficient trace to receive from the push gateway particular data in regards to the cellphone’s NFC functionality.
Finally, the Board determined that utilizing SMS to present the code was instructing 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 moderately present the code utilizing the provisioning and fee utility put in on the mobile cellphone 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 fee utility runs in opposition to the important thing instructing of D2 and the expert individual wouldn’t do it with out a trace in prior artwork. However, D2 doesn’t give such a trace and truly teaches away from the claimed resolution. Paragraph [23] states that the provisioning and fee utility’s fee performance is truly not important for the disclosed subject-matter which moderately relates to its provisioning performance. The expert individual would derive from this that the authorisation code needs to be downloaded utilizing the provisioning and fee utility, even when it can’t be used for wi-fi funds.
Therefore, the subject-matter was thought-about ingenious and the case remitted to the primary occasion with an order to grant the patent primarily based on the claims of the primary request.
More data
You can learn the entire choice right here: T2040/14 (Providing prepaid gift cards to devices with or without NFC capability/ MasterCard International Incorporated).
