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Amazon Patents Getting Numbers Off a Check

Posted by timothy on from the rational-actor dept.

theodp writes "After two rejections, Amazon was granted a patent Tuesday for the Extraction of bank routing number from information entered by a user, which covers the process of obtaining a routing and checking account number from information entered by a user from the face of a check. The patent application was filed in the week preceding Amazon's Call for Patent Reform."

1 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. March 2 2000? by Jahf · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ok, so they filed for the patent on 2 March 2000 ... how far back were they actually using the method?

    I ask because I -swear- that in the mid-90's I was able to use the exact same information to register an account on AOL. Perhaps AOL didn't use the information for -electronic- withdrawal but just printed checks using the info. If so, then ok, there are some differences but seriously not enough to make this valid.

    --
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