Appeal No. 2006-1874
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,351
the remainder. If the banks make bad loans or suffer losses in their investments, they may not
have enough assets to cover payment checks drawn by its depositors. Second, there is payment
risk arising from the fluctuating value of national currencies relative to each other. For instance,
payment made in one currency may change in value before it has been converted to a different
currency for the payee. Third, there is a payment risk commonly known as “settlement risk” or
“Herstatt risk.” It occurs when one party pays out the currency it has sold but does not
immediately receive the currency it has bought. The risk lasts from the time a unilateral
rescission of the currency sold is not possible any more until the time the currency received is
received irrevocably. The patentee’s specification discusses risks from fractional banking.
Claims 1, 9 and 13 are the only independent claims. Claims 1 and 13 are reproduced
below:
1. An electronic commodity based system for conducting financial
transactions, comprising:
at least one deposit site having secure facilities for storage
of a commodity;
an inventory of a valuable commodity stored in said secure
facilities at a said deposit site, said inventory including a quantity
of units of said valuable commodity held at said deposit site for an
account of at least one identified person;
a computer system for processing data for accounting
transactions denominated in said units of said commodity, having
(a) an account data storage device for recording data comprising an
identification of persons and a quantity of units of said commodity
credited to said account of each of said persons and an
identification of said deposit site where said units of commodity
are held,
3
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