- BL number
- O/554/20
- Concerning rights in
- GB1513015.3
- Hearing Officer
- Dr L Cullen
- Decision date
- 9 November 2020
- Person(s) or Company(s) involved
- Barclays Execution Services Limited
- Provisions discussed
- Section 1(2)
- Keywords
- Excluded fields (refused)
- Related Decisions
- None
Summary
The invention relates to a method for the authorisation of transactions, payments or secure log ins. A user device, e.g., a payment card or authentication device, produces a temporary code. This code is transmitted across a network and authenticated by a device at the authentication end producing the same code. The invention combines two values to set the period with which the user device changes the temporary code, the first value is set by the periodic oscillator associated with the user device and the second value is an adjustment value received by the user device via the network from a remote network terminal, such as a point-of-sale terminal. The adjustment factor is variable and its transmission to and use by the user device results in the code being generated more or less frequently. The method takes prevailing conditions in the network into account and will result in fewer transactions not being authenticated.
The hearing officer (HO), applying the Aerotel/Macrossan four step test, found that the application as claimed was excluded as a computer programme as such, and as a method of doing business. The HO found that while the invention related to a more reliable authentication method for a payment network, i.e. a method wherein fewer payments are declined. He considered that while the invention allows for the balance between reliability and security to be adjusted because the adjustment factor is increased or decreased depending on information communicated from the point of sale terminal, improving the reliability comes in effect by reducing the security because it is achieved by increasing the adjustment indicator and so the period of time between changes in the temporary and authentication codes.
The invention as claimed is excluded under Section 1(2) of the Act as relating to a program for a computer and a method of doing business. It was refused under Section 18(3) of the Act.
Full decision O/554/20 
326Kb
https://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-challenge-decision-results/p-challenge-decision-results-bl?BL_Number=O/554/20
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