MasterCard Defeats Claim It Breached Card-Reading Patent License

MasterCard International Inc. convinced a Brooklyn federal court that Alexsam Inc’s prior successful covenant-not-to-sue victory prevents it from moving forward with claims that MasterCard breached a patent license covering prepaid-card reading technology.

Alexsam’s argument that MasterCard was barred from bringing Patent Trial and Appeal Board claims under the license agreement also barred Alexsam’s breach claims, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York said Wednesday.

MasterCard entered a licensing agreement with Alexsam to use two Alexsam patents covering a multi-card transaction processing system. The system enables devices normally used for credit card transactions to process prepaid cards, ...