Appeal 2006-1160 Application 10/155,453 A. INVENTION The invention at issue on appeal helps prevent a bank check having a fraudulent signature from being accepted at a point of sale ("POS"). (Specification 1.) The Appellant estimates that bad checks cost retail outlets somewhere between twelve billion and fifteen billion dollars a year. He further estimated that 30 to 50 percent of the losses result from forged signatures of account holders. (Id.) Consequently, the invention stores signatures from checks drawn on a specific account in a "reference signature set." (Id. 2.) When a new check is received at a POS station, a verification system retrieves the reference signature set and compares it to the signature on the new check. If the latter signature matches at least one of the reference signatures in the set, the verification system sends a "valid signature message" to the POS station. (Id.) If not, the system sends the reference signature set to the station. (Id.) Claim 1, which further illustrates the invention, follows. 1. A signature verification system for verifying a signature on a bank check received at a point of sale system comprising: a retrieve module retrieving a reference signature set having a plurality of signatures by one or more account owners of a checking account on which the check is drawn; a signature verification module comparing the signature on the check against the signatures in the reference signature set; a send acceptance module sending an accept message to the point of sale system if the signature verification module verifies the signature; and 2Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013