USPTO Will Re-Examine CyberSource’s Patent at ReD’s Request

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has said it will re-examine a patent granted in 2000 to CyberSource Corp. that lies at the heart of a patent-infringement suit the Mountain View, Calif.-based processor filed last August against rival Retail Decisions PLC (ReD) and its U.S. operation, Retail Decisions Inc. The USPTO decision comes after Retail Decisions requested the re-examination, claiming it had found prior art dating to a time before the CyberSource patent. U.K.-based Retail Decisions in a statement released today says it will ask for a stay in court proceedings until the USPTO releases the results of its re-examination, a process the company says it expects will take anywhere from 18 to 24 months. Retail Decisions in the statement reiterates its previously stated position that it believes its “operations do not infringe on any valid claims of the asserted patent.” A CyberSource spokesperson refused to comment on the USPTO re-examination, saying the company “can't comment on pending litigation.” CyberSource filed its suit against Retail Decisions in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming one of Retail Decisions' products, ebitGuard, violated its patent, U.S. patent number 6,029,154 (“Method and System for Detecting Fraud in a Credit Card Transaction Over the Internet”). CyberSource applied for the patent in July 1997 and received it nearly three years later. In its suit, CyberSource is asking the court for an injunction against Retail Decisions as well as for compensatory damages and treble damages for “willful infringement.” CyberSource controls 57% of the $42 million market for e-commerce fraud management, while Retail Decisions commands a 24% share, according to data from Celent Communications.