By Michael D. Bednarek and James V. Fazio, III 1
Leon Stambler, once a little known electrical engineer, has made a name for himself over the past decade by suing companies for infringement of patents related to secure online banking transactions. Despite a loss at trial in 2003, Stambler has not been deterred. Stambler recently filed three new patent infringement lawsuits against major banking and other entities. While the outcome of these new lawsuits remains to be seen, one thing seems clear: Stambler does not quit without a fight.
In the 1980s, Leon Stambler, developed a way to use personal identification numbers with bank automated teller machines. Beginning in 1992, Stambler obtained seven patents related to processes that allow one party to authenticate another party and to create a secure means for transmitting data electronically. The three patents that Stambler has asserted recently are U.S. Patent Nos. 5,793,302 (“the ‘302 patent”), 5,936,541 (“the ‘541 patent”) and 5,974,148 (“the ‘148 patent”). Each of these patents is entitled “Method for Securing Information Relevant to a Transaction,” and each generally relates to a method of authenticating a transaction, document or party to the transaction using known encryption methods. The patented system requires that information associated with one or more of the parties to a transaction be coded together to produce a joint code. This joint code is then used to code information relevant to ...
