Fintiv, a firm you’ve probably only heard of in the context of patent litigation, is once again suing Apple over Apple Pay. Apple’s secure mobile payment solution launched over a decade ago in 2014. Fintiv has been unsuccessfully suing Apple over Apple Pay since 2018.
Apple is not hiding its frustration. In a statement to 9to5Mac, the company accused the Texas-based firm of trying to “distract from their failed patent case” with a new set of allegations.
“The court has repeatedly rejected Fintiv’s claims and we believe this latest attempt to distract from their failed patent case should also be dismissed,” Apple tells 9to5Mac. “We launched Apple Pay over a decade ago and have been innovating every day since to give users the best, most private and secure experience available. We’ll continue to defend against these false claims.”
The new complaint, filed this week in federal court in Georgia, is the first time in more than seven years of litigation that Fintiv has accused Apple of trade secret theft. It also adds racketeering allegations, claiming Apple built Apple Pay by copying technology from CorFire, a mobile payments company Fintiv later acquired.
Years of courtroom losses
Fintiv’s litigation campaign began in 2018 with a single patent and has repeatedly failed in court. Judge Alan Albright, who presided over the long-running case in Texas, has twice ruled that Apple does not use Fintiv’s patented technology.
Those rulings hinged on a key difference: Fintiv’s patent requires storing “account-specific information” like credit card numbers directly on the device. Apple Pay, by design, does not store that information locally, relying instead on a secure architecture that Apple says it developed from scratch to protect privacy and security.
Even after the Federal Circuit sent part of the case back for further review, Judge Albright again found in July 2025 that Apple did not infringe most of Fintiv’s claims. Fintiv then voluntarily dismissed its remaining claims with prejudice, after the jury had been selected, rather than proceed to trial.
Apple says it was prepared to prove not only that it does not use Fintiv’s technology, but also that the patent is invalid in light of prior work by VivoTech, a company founded by payments industry pioneer Mohammad Khan.
Shifting claims after patent defeat
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