Newly-founded Texas firm sues over Apple Pay's virtual wallet

An Austin startup, Fintiv, is suing Apple over a patent covering virtual wallets such as the one core to Apple Pay.

The patent was acquired from South Korea and covers "management of virtual cards stored on mobile devices," including "provisioning a contactless card in a mobile device with a mobile wallet application," according to Fintiv's complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Waco, spotted by Patently Apple. Apple is allegedly infringing three claims in the patent by way of iPhones, the Apple Watch, and the iOS Wallet app.

Fintiv was founded just this year, but already claims to have 5.4 million people on its mobile payments and marketing platform, available in 12 languages and 60 countries. The company is pursuing "monetary damages and prejudgment interest" for Apple's "past and continuing infringement" of the wallet patent.

Apple is regularly targeted by patent lawsuits, many of them by "trolls" — firms that own the rights to one or more patents but don't actually develop any products with them, instead depending on legal actions and/or licensing agreements to make money.

The biggest ongoing fight though involves chipmaking giant Qualcomm. That took a turn against Apple recently when China imposed an injunction against some iPhone sales. In response, Apple took the rare step of preparing a software update to sidestep infringement.

27 Comments

dix99 15 comments · 10 Years

About 5 years ago

I’v never seen this before the update, but now when my son messages me, they’re showing up in other contacts messages.

the1maximus 90 comments · 7 Years

5.4 Million users in under a year!!

These people are full of $*** and probably about to collapse. They probably figured they’d go out with a bang and what better way is there, then to try and take Apple to court.

MplsP 4047 comments · 8 Years

Does this company happen to reside in the Eastern District of Texas?

“Managing virtual cards stored on mobile devices” sounds like a blatantly obvious concept that shouldn’t be patentable. Are they going to file a patent for a system of “managing physical cards on mobile people” and sue regular wallet makers too?

agilealtitude 165 comments · 6 Years

What a great patent system. Check out the Austin Meyer / X-Plane story on YouTube.

ericthehalfbee 4489 comments · 13 Years

many of them by "trolls" — firms that own the rights to one or more patents but don't actually develop any products with them, instead depending on legal actions and/or licensing agreements to make money.
I’m getting tired of this definition. How a company ACTS defines whether they’re a troll, not whether they make products. It’s perfectly legal and acceptable to be a non-practicing entity (NPE) and make money licensing patents you own.

If you file frivolous/vague lawsuits, file lawsuits without negotiating in good faith first, threaten potential infringers to secure a quick settlement, try to abuse patents that are part of a standard or try to sue end users instead of manufacturers - these would be activities that would earn you a troll label.

My uncle owns a couple patents related to farm equipment (he’s a farmer and inventor). He licenses them to equipment manufacturers. He’s never had to sue anyone and makes a reasonable income from
his patents. Is he a troll because he doesn’t own a billion dollar manufacturing company to make his own products?