Effecting Payment Card Transactions, European Patent Office (EPO Board of Appeal), 08 September 2009

The Examining Division had refused a patent application for a method and system of processing a payment card transaction. Before the Board of Appeal, the applicant requested suspension of the proceedings to await the opinion of the Enlarged Board of Appeal in G 3/08. The Board of Appeal refused to grant the requested suspension, because the present case was not concerned with computer programs as such and thus not with the points of law the Enlarged Board is expected to address when answering the referred questions. Although it could not be excluded that the answer of Enlarged Board to one of the questions would cover subject-matter related to the present case, the interest of the party awaiting possible guidance from the outcome of the opinion could not counterbalance the interest of the public in a swift decision on pending patent applications.

The full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.