A federal judge has dismissed MShift Inc.'s mobile banking patent infringement lawsuit against Intuit Financial Services and a Louisiana bank.
The suit filed earlier this year accuses Intuit and Community Trust Financial Corp. of Ruston, La., of infringing on MShift's 2005 patent for linking technology between mobile devices and online banking networks.
But U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California ruled on Oct. 8 that the mobile banking services of Intuit Financial and Mobile Money Ventures "do not include certain elements of MShift's patented technology."
MShift said it would appeal. We "presented a large amount of evidence that the mobile banking product of DI and MMV infringes MShift's '881 patent," said Scott Moeller, MShift's CEO. "For whatever reason, the judge did not credit MShift's substantial evidence of infringement. We strongly believe the judge's analysis included several significant errors in how he evaluated the highly technical issues relating to the '881 patent and the accused technology.
"We will vigorously pursue an appeal in the Federal Circuit, and we are confident our patent rights will be vindicated."
Calabasas, Calif.-based Intuit Financial Services, formerly Digital Insight, said it was happy with the judge's ruling. "As we've stated all along, we were confident that no Intuit or MMV technologies we supply financial institutions infringe on MShift's patent, and we firmly believe that MShift's lawsuit lacked merit," said spokesman Tobin Lee.
"We will continue to vigorously defend ourselves and protect our clients against these types of lawsuits," Lee said. Intuit bought Digital Insight in 2007 and changed the name earlier this year.
MShift of Fremont, Calif., provides mobile banking technology to about 200 financial institutions, it said, including a majority of the 50 largest credit unions. Intuit Financial Services said it has a client list of about 1,900 financial institutions, about half of them credit unions.
