Symmetry: Symmetry celebrates rejection of patent that may have increased costs of e-invoicing

Symmetry, a financial management systems provider has welcomed a decision by the European Patent Office to reject a patent proposed by e-invoicing company OB10, that threatened to impose additional licensing charges for the routing of electronic documents. Symmetry joined other members of BASDA (Business Application Software Developers Association) to fight against the introduction of the patent which has now been turned down.

Sales & Operations Director at Symmetry, Julian Sayer commented, “If the patent had been upheld this would have had serious implications for users of electronic based processes such as e-invoicing, because of the additional costs incurred. As a company that believes strongly in ‘open’ technology and easy access to non-proprietary software applications, we were keen to support BASDA’s challenge to the patent and are delighted with the result. This means that organisations can take full advantage of the benefits that e-invoicing delivers, without being penalised unfairly.”

The BASDA group was not alone in objecting to OB10’s ‘Communications Routing Apparatus’ patent; the European Patent Office received 19 notices of opposition in total. Many of these were from large, pan-European companies. If the patent had gone unchallenged, OB10 could have levied licensing charges on, or even stopped many UK and other companies using similar technologies. 

By being willing to pool their experience and knowledge of the UK business software industry prior to 2000, BASDA members were able to make available evidence of systems and methodologies in operation prior to the patent’s claimed 'novel' introduction. BASDA's opposition was filed on the grounds that the ‘invention’ claimed in the patent was neither new nor inventive over what was previously publicly known.

Editor’s notes: 

About Symmetry:

Symmetry is a software company that specialises in the development and supply of business-to-business financial solutions within the UK. The company’s core product, Symmetry Financials, is a fully integrated financial and management accounting solution already in use at over 100 UK organisations, ranging in size from £3M turnover to £250M turnover and with user populations from 2 to 800+ users. 

The solution Financials includes General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Commitment Accounting with purchasing and funds control, Assets, Information Manager, real-time reporting, secure e-procurement and comprehensive systems integration with Symmetry’s EasyLink. 

In 2010, the company launched a cloud based version of Financials called Financialsc

Press Contact: Jane Moores/Sally Minchin, TTA Communications, 01225 580214. E-mail: jmoores@ttauk.com
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