Patent Infringement | "Fidelity takes up patent fight"

By: Brendan Lynch
Source: http://news.bostonherald.com
Category: Patent Infringement

Fidelity Investments is fending off a potential patent infringement lawsuit by pre-emptively striking against a West Coast company that launched a broad legal assault over mobile payment technology.

The Boston financial services giant received a letter in October from Maxim Integrated Products urging Fidelity to pay licensing fees for “mobile transaction” technology covered by the company’s patents.

Since the beginning of the year, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Maxim has sued Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Groupon and seven other companies. Fidelity took Maxim to court first, filing a civil complaint last month in Boston federal court seeking a ruling that its iPhone app doesn’t infringe on the patents.

Maxim declined comment. The publicly traded firm, founded in 1983, makes semiconductor products but also holds a portfolio of mobile payment patents.

Companies often pick up patents beyond their main business through acquisitions and can generate revenue even if they don’t develop products.

“The nice way to put it is ‘non-practicing entities.’ They’re also called ‘patent trolls,’ ” said Robert Abrahamsen, a patent attorney at Wolf Greenfield in Boston.

A high-profile case occurred in 2006 when Research in Motion was forced to fork over $613 million to patent-rich company NTP to avoid a shutdown of its BlackBerry wireless email service.

Abrahamsen said he wasn’t surprised Fidelity sued in Massachusetts, its home court, where juries may be sympathetic. Maxim has filed lawsuits in the “plaintiff-friendly” Eastern District of Texas, he said.

Fidelity spokesman Adam Banker declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the legal action “will have no effect on our products, our services or our customers.”

Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view/20220305fidelity_takes_up_patent_fight_fund_giant_sues_company_seeking_licensing_fees_for_mobile_technology/srvc=home&position=also