Intuit Financial Services took round one of a patent infringement suit it faces from MShift Inc. but the mobile banking specialist said it plans to appeal.

The suit, filed earlier this year, accuses the former Digital Insight of Calabasas, Calif., 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 dismissed the suit last week.

MShift said it would appeal. "[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," CEO Scott Moeller said.

Intuit Financial Services said it was happy with the judge's ruling. "As we've stated all along, we were confident that no ... technologies we supply financial institutions infringe on MShift's patent, and we firmly believe that MShift's lawsuit lacked merit," spokesman Tobin 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.