Apple, Visa Escape Smartphone Payment Patent Infringement Claims

Apple Inc. and Visa Inc. defeated patent infringement claims covering technology that lets smartphones be used to authenticate payments, after convincing a Delaware federal court on Tuesday that the relevant parts of the patents were invalid.

Rejecting a magistrate judge’s recommendation, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware found the four patents covered the abstract idea of securely verifying a person’s identity, and didn’t include a patent-eligible inventive concept.

Universal Secure Registry LLC owns U.S. Patent Nos. 8,577,813; 8,856,539; 9,100,826; and 9,530,137; which it said “allow a user to securely authenticate his or her identity using technology built ...