A firm in the United Kingdom has contacted PSCU Financial Services' executives claiming that it already holds a patent on technology that allows credit and debit cardholders to turn their cards on and off.
Marite Ferrero, chief operating officer of London based CardSwitch Technology Limited sent an e-mail to PSCU CEO David Serlo and PSCU Chief Risk Officer Steve Ruwe, suggesting that the firm already holds a patent on the technology that PSCU has started offering its credit unions under the name of CardLock.
"I would like to point out to you that I am Maria T. Laage, the inventor of this system that enables cardholders (and/or banks) to turn on or turn off their debit and credit cards," Ferrero wrote. "This patent application was filed in February 2001 with worldwide PCTs. United States Patent and Trademark Organization awarded the patent for this application in August, 2005."
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"VISA applied for the same claims in March, 2002 (13 months after mine). VISA actually referred to my patent application, since mine is a published prior art. VISA was not awarded the patent for their application since mine got there first."
An examination of the CardSwitch Web site (http://www.cardswitchtechnology.com) says their product "enables cardholders to define their own user limits and prohibitions," which is largely what Visa is seeking to do in a product it is testing in Europe. CardLock, by contrast, only allows cardholders to turn their cards on and off.
No one from PSCU has commented yet on the CardSwitch claim.
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