14 DAY TRIAL // The Universal Secure Registry sued Apple and Visa for allegedly violating patents connected to the Apple Pay technology. The Registry holds 13 patents on concepts that are currently used by Apple to facilitate transactions through the Apple Pay service.
The Universal Secure Registry holds patents for smartphone authentication, biometric identification, and one-time payment tokens, which are all used in Apple Pay, according to the New York Times. The CEO of Universal Secure Registry, Kenneth Weiss stated that he met with Visa’s CEO and other officials in 2010, after which the financial company signed a 10-year nondisclosure agreement and delegated engineers to get familiar with the technology.
After this, Visa went silent and didn’t get a license for the technology. Soon after that, Visa, MasterCard and American Express started supporting Apple Pay in 2013 and the technology finally rolled out in 2014. Although it requested legal advice at the time, the Universal Secure Registry didn’t purse licensing or royalties, as the company wanted to reach an out-of-court settlement with the two companies.
Sadly, the companies didn’t reach an agreement on the matter and now the Universal Secure Registry is suing Apple and Visa. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan will represent the Universal Secure Registry, and the law firm also represented Samsung Electronics in some patent litigation cases with Apple over software found in its Android-running smartphones.
Apple is working on future technology for Apple Pay
The Universal Secure Registry is also working on its own wireless authentication device using the technology that it currently owns. Still, Apple Pay didn’t see the adoption that the company had been hoped for, but the trend is currently changing.
UK transactions increased 300% in the past year, and over 50% of wireless payment terminals in the country now have the capacity to accept Apple Pay transactions over 30. The limit is imposed in order to prevent fraud. The head of Apple Pay has recently said that Apple is working on new technology that would replace parts of the wallet beyond credit and debit cards, but no further details have been provided.