Case: T 1613/22 | Board: Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.01 | Date: 12 December 2025
Key Takeaways
1. Combining known authentication methods is not inventive. Adding facial image display to an existing biometric payment system is an obvious step when prior art already discloses both elements in analogous contexts — even if no single document combines them in exactly the same way.
2. Non-technical requirements cannot rescue a claim. The choice of a €30 threshold for additional security checks, and the decision to show a user’s photo only after PIN verification to protect privacy, were both treated as non-technical design choices that cannot contribute to inventive step under the Comvik approach.
Summary
Italian company Gre-Lab S.r.l. appealed the EPO Examining Division’s refusal of their patent application for a secure electronic payment method. The system works by storing a user’s biometric data, PIN, account details, and a facial photograph on a central server. At the point of sale, the user authenticates via fingerprint and, for higher-value transactions, a PIN — after which the stored photo is displayed to the seller as a final visual identity check, allowing cashless payments without cards or mobile devices.
The Board dismissed the appeal across all six claim requests. The key move was combining two prior art documents: D1, a biometric payment authentication system, and D3, a transaction system that stores a user’s facial image on a central server and displays it to a shop assistant for identity verification. Since both documents dealt with multi-factor authentication in payment contexts, the Board found it obvious to combine them — adding D3’s photo-display feature to D1’s fingerprint-based system as a straightforward additional security measure. None of the auxiliary requests introduced amendments capable of changing this outcome. Narrowing the claim to a remote server, excluding physical money, or specifying that the photo is shown only after successful biometric and PIN verification were all found either already anticipated by the prior art or representing non-technical implementation choices that cannot support an inventive step.