Report from the Third W3C Web Payments Working Group PAG

Status of this Document

This report was approved by the third Web Payments Working Group Patent Advisory Group (PAG) on 9 August 2019.

Executive Summary

The goal of the W3C Patent Policy is to assure that Recommendations produced under this policy can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis. W3C forms Patent Advisory Groups (PAGs) when patent claims are asserted against or expressly excluded from royalty-free commitment for implementations of W3C Recommendations.

In June 2019 W3C launched the third Web Payments Working Group Patent Advisory Group (PAG) in response to patent disclosures and exclusions by Visa (the "Disclosed Patent Applications") claimed to bear relevance to the Payment Request API.

In this report, the PAG concludes that the Disclosed Patent Applications do not, in their current form, contain Essential Claims as defined in the W3C Patent Policy and recommends that the Web Payments Working Group continue to work on Payment Request API.

Procedure and Timeline

Analysis

We adopted this approach:

Note: Any pending patent applications are pending as of the date at the bottom of this report.

Browser extension with additional capabilities

Patent Application Country W3C ID
CA/3,000,957 Canada 169
AU2016353157 Australia 168
16865048.9 Europe 163
201680066252.1 China 162

These patents claim priority to previously disclosed patent US/14/938530. That patent application is still pending.

In CA/3,000,957 we evaluated independent claim 1 and also claim 14 (which restates the same elements as part of a networked system). We concluded there were non-essential elements. The same elements are present in AU2016353157 (claims 1 and 14) and EU16865048.9 (claims 1 and 14). We were unable to locate the claims of 201680066252.1 and thus could not analyze the text, though they are likely to be the same.

Universal access to an electronic wallet

Patent Application Country W3C ID
17736253 Europe 165
201847024939 India 166
AU2017205962 Australia 170
CA/3,010,342 Canada 171
2018124287 Russia 172
11201805769U Singapore 173
201780015312.1 China 164

These patents claim priority to previously disclosed patent US/14/988585. That patent application is still pending.

In CA/3,010,342 we evaluated independent claim 1 and also claim 9 (which restates the same elements as part of a networked system). We concluded there were non-essential elements. The same elements are present in 17736253, AU2017205962, and 2018124287. We were unable to locate the claims of 201847024939, 11201805769U, and 201780015312.1, though they are likely to be the same.

Cardless challenge systems and methods

Patent Application Country W3C ID
CA/3,036,173 Canada 159
US/16/285,087 US 160

These patents claim priority to previously disclosed patent application US13/358,472. That patent issued as US 10,262,308 on 2019-04-16 (that is, since the closure of the first WPWG PAG).

In CA/3,036,173 we evaluated several of the independent claims and applied the analysis of the first PAG report. We concluded there were non-essential elements. The same elements are present in US/16/285,087.

Electronic wallet checkout platform apparatuses, methods and systems

Patent Application Country W3C ID
US/16/140879 US 161

This patent has the same title as previously disclosed patent US/15/494294. That patent application is still pending.

In US/16/140879 we evaluated independent claim 31. We concluded there were non-essential elements.

Payment platform interface widget generation apparatuses, methods and systems

Previously disclosed patent application US13/966098 issued as US 10,318,941 on 2019-06-11 (that is, since the closure of the first WPWG PAG). We evaluated claims 1, 14, and 15. We concluded there were non-essential elements.

Conclusions

The PAG concludes that Payment Request API does not require all the claim elements of any independent claim of the Disclosed Patent Applications in their current form.

In addition, the PAG concludes that Payment Request API does not require all the claim elements of any independent claim of the previously disclosed patents US13/358,472 and US13966098, both of which issued since the closure of the first WPWG PAG.

Accordingly, the PAG concludes that none of the Disclosed Patents contains Essential Claims as defined in the W3C Patent Policy.

Recommendations

The PAG recommends that work on Payment Request API continue.

Disclaimer

None of the authors is your attorney. No part of this report is intended as legal advice either to W3C or to its members. It is intended merely as a summary of what the PAG has learned to date. Rely on this report entirely at your own risk. This analysis includes the personal opinions of the authors.

THESE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE WEB PAYMENTS WORKING GROUP PATENT ADVISORY GROUP ARE NOT LEGAL ADVICE. NEITHER W3C NOR ANY OF THE PARTICIPANTS OF THIS PATENT ADVISORY GROUP OR THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYERS TAKES ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY, LEGAL CORRECTNESS OR OTHER FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS REPORT. ESPECIALLY, NEITHER W3C NOR ANY OF THE PARTICIPANTS OF THIS PATENT ADVISORY GROUP OR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYERS MAKE ANY REPRESENTATION THAT FOLLOWING THE RECOMMENDATIONS HERE WILL AVOID AN INFRINGEMENT OF ANY PATENTS MENTIONED IN THE REPORT.

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