A newly unsealed opinion shows why Apple had little patience for Fintiv’s long-running claims in Texas. As it turns out, after seven years of litigation, Fintiv still could not point to any evidence that Apple Pay or Apple Wallet ever used the kind of “widget” described in its patent. That finding explains the company’s abrupt retreat in Texas and bodes poorly for its latest attempt to profit off Apple Pay in Georgia.
Why Fintiv’s Texas claims collapsed
Judge Alan Albright, who oversees one of the country’s busiest patent dockets in the Western District of Texas, granted Apple summary judgment of non-infringement on the core claims Fintiv was still pursuing.
The recently unsealed opinion basically boiled down to this: Fintiv kept insisting Apple Pay contained a “widget,” but when pressed, the company and its expert could not actually identify what that widget was supposed to be.
At best, they pointed to card images and metadata and called that “software.” The court was not impressed. Albright concluded that Apple’s servers were not “widget management components,” and that Wallet and Apple Pay were not “mobile wallet applications configured to store a widget.” With that, Fintiv’s remaining claims fell apart.
That left Fintiv with little room to maneuver in Texas, even in a venue often considered friendly to patent plaintiffs. Rather than face a jury that would have heard Albright’s conclusion that its evidence did not add up, Fintiv folded.
Fintiv shifted to Georgia after losing in Texas
Less than a week later, Fintiv popped up again, this time in Georgia. The new case swaps out patent infringement for trade secret theft and racketeering, but the story feels familiar.
For years, Fintiv has argued that Apple Pay relies on its intellectual property. Now a judge in one of the most patent-heavy courts in the country has spelled out why those arguments just didn’t work.
Apple’s statement to 9to5Mac earlier this month emphasized that “the court has repeatedly rejected Fintiv’s claims.” This ruling is the most detailed example of that rejection and shows why the fight has shifted out of Texas and into a new courtroom.
Fintiv spent seven years chasing a widget it could never find. Now it wants a new courtroom to believe Apple actually stole trade secrets instead. Whatever happens next, the newly unsealed ruling does no favors for Fintiv’s case in Georgia.