Bank of America Corp. has received a patent for technology it will market to its corporate clients. The technology, dubbed Active Card Control, allows Bank of America customers to manage funds on corporate purchasing cards in real time, which the bank says reduces the risk of theft and enables customers to gain control over employee expenditures.

The technology allows customers to reset the available funds on each card through a Web-based tool. Cards have no available funds until the client is ready to pay a supplier. The customer then submits an electronic purchase request to BofA, which funds individual cards with the exact amount to be paid. When those purchases are billed to the card, the available funds go to zero.

The problem does not end with the need to modify the ‘scope of patentability’. In a recent statement made by a concerned government official, it is observed that government is thinking of granting of patents for encouraging incremental innovations.

Patents system has acquired a unique position in the industrial economy of each country. It is a system which has to be very carefully evolved to ensure that exploitation of the consumer does not take place through creation of absolute monopolies over the new products. The interests of the patent holders and the consumer have to be balanced to ensure achievement of objectives and smooth working of the patents system.