Posts Tagged: "ecommerce"

EMV utilizes a computer chip implanted into a card to interact with a card reader at the point-of-sale in retail establishments. The technology is much more secure than typical magnetic stripes as the chip encrypts financial payment data multiple times which communicating with a terminal. Financial services providers all over the world will be replacing magnetic stripe cards with EMV cards to prevent cyber attacks at terminals to stem the growing tide of cyber attacks which had been greatly hurting banks. Following up our recent EMV coverage we took a look at EMV related patents, finding that Mastercard has a dominant position in this field with 25 patents, almost a quarter of all patents related to EMV payments issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Following up behind Mastercard is Japan-based SMK Corporation and Intellectual Ventures Management of Bellevue, WA.

As card-present transactions become less susceptible to fraud because of the shift to EMV chip card technologies, it’s expected that more fraud will shift to online platforms where it’s still relatively easy to input fraudulent financial information without being noticed; some reports indicate that online retail fraud in the U.S. alone is expected to rise by 106 percent in three years after October’s EMV liability shift from banks to business owners. One way that businesses conducting sales online can get themselves ready to respond quickly to fraud is through effective planning prior to major sales events like Black Friday or, perhaps more important when thinking about e-commerce, Cyber Monday. If those workers handling fulfillment of online orders are more aware of expected sales projections, it will help them be more aware of clues that the business might be a target for fraud if actual sales figures differ wildly.

Retailers always top the list of seasonal and holiday hiring sprees but one of the largest employer of seasonal workers the past few years doesn’t own a single brick-and-mortar retail establishment. That would be e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) of Seattle, WA. In 2014, the Internet retailer announced that it would hire 80,000 seasonal workers during last year’s holiday season. In 2015, Amazon has upped that number to 100,000 workers that it plans to employ on at least a temporary basis. This makes Amazon the single largest employer of seasonal workers during 2015, ahead of United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) and its 95,000 holiday hires.

By the end of 2015, about 40% of all credit and debit card transactions will use EMV cards. To process payments on EMV cards, businesses must upgrade to new card processing or point-of-sale technologies.

Since the inception of the search engine, trademark owners, advertisers, search engine providers, and the courts have struggled with the issue of the use of third-party trademarks in keyword advertising and search returns, and whether such trademark use is likely to confuse consumers when they are searching for information regarding a particular brand. Despite an array of holdings on this issue over the years, following the 2011 decision in Network Automation, Inc. v. Advanced System Concepts, Inc., the Ninth Circuit and other courts have generally held that the potential for “mere diversion” of a consumer caused by the use of a third party’s trademark in connection with sponsored keywords or search results does not constitute trademark infringement unless a trademark owner can demonstrate that particular search returns or sponsored keyword advertisements are likely to cause confusion based on the specific use or presentation of a trademark in a search return.