FIS has won a three-year patent dispute suit lodged by rival vendor Fiserv following a ruling that the alleged infringements were 'unpatentable'.
FIS and Metavante, which FIS acquired in 2009, were sued by Fiserv subsidiaries CheckFree and CashEdge in January 2012 for allegedly infringing four business method patents.
The patents at issue covered dynamic biller list generation, systems and methods for risk-based determination of a form for crediting a payee on behalf of a payer, and a method and apparatus for managing multiple accounts.
Fiserv claimed that certain features of FIS’ financial and payment packages, including its Payment Manager product - which process inter-bank account-to-account fund transfers, payment instructions, and provide electronic biller notifications - infringed the asserted patents.
In December 2014, the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled that all claims in Fiserv’s asserted patents are "unpatentable".
Fiserv initially disputed the ruling but has now agreed to back down, settling the case outside of court with no monetary payment made or promised by either party.