Apple Pay targeted in new patent infringement lawsuit

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Apple and Visa are both targets of the lawsuit.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple and Visa are on the receiving end of a lawsuit from tech company RSA SecurID, concerning security and authentication patents allegedly being infringed on by Apple Pay.

According to the CEO of RSA SecurID, the company had extensive meetings with Visa officials back in 2010, which led to Visa signing a 10-year nondisclosure agreement regarding RSA SecurID’s inventions. These included smartphone-based payments, biometric-based payment security systems, generation of one-time payment “tokens,” and more.

It also claims that it contacted Apple about licensing the technology, but Apple never responded to the request.

There are 13 patents in total that RSA SecurID received concerning mobile payments. It’s not entirely clear from the report which patents are supposedly being infringed on by Apple and Visa, but the New York Times notes that it wasn’t until 2013 when Visa began work on the Apple Pay technology with Apple, MasterCard and American Express. Apple Pay launched to the public in 2014.

Kenneth P. Weiss, the chief executive of RSA SecurID, says that, “My intention is still to get into a conference room with [Apple and Visa] and resolve this [issue.]”

So far, neither Visa nor Apple has responded to the lawsuit, and there has been no public mention of the kind of money  RSA SecurID wants in order to license its patents in the event that they are being infringed on.

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