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Not a decade, FOUR decades. But it isn't a US patent... http://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_à_puce

From the the rough Google translation, does your card contain 64 fuses that can act as a unit of currency/credit? Authentication seems... minimal. =)

informatimago is absolutely right, chip based (credit) cards is a French invention. If you want to read in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV

"The first standard for payment cards was the Carte Bancaire M4 from Bull-CP8 deployed in France in 1986 followed by the B4B0' (compatible with the M4) deployed in 1989. Geldkarte in Germany also predates EMV. EMV was designed to allow cards and terminals to be backwardly compatible with these standards. France has since migrated all its card and terminal infrastructure to EMV."

...and he has been downvoted. Way to go, HN!

Ignore downvotes. They usually self-correct over the next few hours as people see unjustified downvotes and supply an upvote. And sometimes they're just fat finger errors.

What a formidable feat that this article could completely erase french invention from the carte à puce.

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