h) Security 

In T 1326/06 the board held that methods of encrypting/decrypting or signing electronic communications had to be regarded as technical methods, even if they were essentially based on mathematical methods. It referred to T 953/04, where the board had stated that the use of cryptographic methods in the technical context of electronic data processing and communication certainly had technical character. The board in T 1326/06 also referred to T 27/97, where the board had stated that a method of encrypting or decrypting a message represented in the form of a digital word using RSA-type public-key algorithms was not excluded from patentability under Art. 52(2) and (3) EPC, even if based on an abstract algorithm or mathematical method.

In T 2101/12 the application related to a computer implemented invention concerning a method and system for providing an electronic signature and authentication. The board considered it common general knowledge that documents, such as a will or a contract between parties, may be signed at a notary's office. With this common general knowledge process as starting point, the board held that the skilled person would, as a result of a straightforward automation of this process, arrive at the subject-matter of the invention at hand without any inventive activity. The board further considered that the process as described contained sufficient detail to allow the skilled person to arrive at the claimed subject-matter using otherwise nothing more than conventional automation techniques.

In T 1461/12 the application related to a system and method for auditing software usage. Claim 1 specified that running of the copy of the soft‑ware would be terminated after expiry of the limited unlock key. The board found that the differences to the prior art related primarily to the terms and conditions of the license in question. In the board's view, it was up to the rights owners whether they wanted to limit the number of "copies" made of a given piece of software and to grant one set of rights for the first number of copies and a different, limited set of rights subsequently for a second number of copies. Moreover, the board took the view that the rights owner would make that choice according to legal, economic and administrative considerations rather than technical ones. The board therefore considered that the content of the license did not contribute to the technical character of the invention.

The board in T 548/13 held that the only distinguishing feature, requiring the security features to show different views of the same image on the front and back of a value document, was non-technical. It conceded that it made the document more difficult to counterfeit, but two different motifs could just as easily be used.

In T 1749/14 the invention was in the field of mobile point-of-sale (POS) terminals for carrying out transactions, e.g. involving a credit card. The invention tried to avoid the customer's sensitive information becoming known if a merchant's device was tampered with by allowing a transaction to be carried out without the customer having to present account information and the PIN to the merchant. The board held that the invention required a new infrastructure, new devices and a new protocol involving technical considerations linked to modified devices and their capabilities as well as security relevant modifications of the transfer of sensitive information using new possibilities achieved by the modifications to the previously known mobile POS infrastructure. The board considered the security relevance of the modifications to contribute to the technical character of the present invention.