Small Firm Claims Patents On e-Banking Processes

bth writes "The New York Times has a report that DataTreasury Corp is suing banks over 2 patents that 'describe a way to store and retrieve transaction records electronically.' A patent search reveals US6032137 and US5910988, each having the title: 'Remote image capture with centralized processing and storage -- System for central management, storage and report generation of remotely captured paper transactions from documents and receipts.' From one of the abstracts: 'The system retrieves transaction data such as credit card receipts checks in either electronic or paper form at one or more remote locations, encrypts the data, transmits the encrypted data to a central location, transforms the data to a usable form, performs identification verification using signature data and biometric data, generates informative reports from the data and transmits the informative reports to the remote location(s).' It is good to know that someone has managed to finally invent a system that can store, retrieve, and securely transmit financial transactions."

Comments

Prior Art

[NullProg]

Banks have been doing this for over twenty years. Remote machines scan documents (checks/statements etc), store them in a local central database. Then nightly these transactions are electronically moved by the FED.

I hope IBM/NCR sue the crap out of this company.
Merry Chistmas and enjoy.

/. doesn't like MS FUD but likes anti-patent FUD

[back_pages]

A patent search reveals US6032137 and US5910988, each having the title: 'Remote image capture with centralized processing and storage -- System for central management, storage and report generation of remotely captured paper transactions from documents and receipts.'

The title of a patent is meaningless. I read one last week for "Remote Control Device" which was a high pressure hydraulic hoze/nozzle that could be aimed from a distance, used in mining operations. There is no legal weight in a patent title and while the intention is that they are informative, there is uneven enforcement of that rule.

From one of the abstracts: 'The system retrieves transaction data such as credit card receipts checks in either electronic or paper form at one or more remote locations, encrypts the data, transmits the encrypted data to a central location, transforms the data to a usable form, performs identification verification using signature data and biometric data, generates informative reports from the data and transmits the informative reports to the remote location(s).'

The abstract of a patent has no legal weight. The rules regarding abstracts are more evenly enforced than titles, as the abstracts are useful to examiners, but the typical attorney couldn't care if the abstract recited a recipe for meatloaf.

Here are the patents under debate:
6032137
5910988
Linking to the actual patent is trivial, however undermines the element of FUD which wins the submitter such karma and peer approval. (Rather than mod this as a troll, proving at least to myself how correct I am, feel free to explain to me why failing to link to the patents themselves helps an intelligent discussion rather than perpetuating the FUD.)

The claims of a patent are the only part of a patent that undisputably carries legal weight. Any discussion about whether a patent should or should not have been issued that does not relate strictly to the claims is nonsense - it is directly analogous to praising Windows because you can use a mouse on a graphical screen. It is uneducated, pointless, and irritating to anyone who knows that other operating systems use mouse pointers and graphical screens.

Further, these patents will come under extreme attack if they are used in court. Merely having these patents is meaningless. When these patents are used against someone, he would be a complete idiot to not first question whether the patents can be invalidated in court. This is how the patent system works and this is why you can apply for a patent for under $2000 - a thorough search for prior art will cost over $100,000 and the USPTO cannot afford to give those out for $2000. Only the media and those who do not properly understand the existing system of patent litigation expect the USPTO to provide a perfect search of prior art for 2% of the market value of such a search.

In conclusion, while there may be a great deal of problems with these patents, and plenty of legitimate complaints about the how the system works, the submitter of this story addresses nothing but meaningless and baseless fluff. There would be more substance to the complaints if he griped about the poor scan quality of the documents. Please keep in mind that I'm not arguing the merits of these patents, but rather pointing out that the submitter addresses no valid complaints because, by analogy, he's busy arguing whether the Windows is better than OSX by pointing out how pretty the Windows desktop is.

But moderators, if you fear that facts might interfere with your self-affirmation, by all means convince me that I'm correct (regarding the subject line) and moderate this as a troll.