Four patent infringement lawsuits against MorphoTrust USA (Safran) have been dropped, the company has announced. All it took was a bit of basic defensive maneuvering.
The lawsuits were filed by a company called Blue Spike back in 2012 and 2013, and eventually pushed MorphoTrust to file two defensive claims of its own with the Court of Federal Claims. One was a request for summary judgement seeking to invalidate Blue Spike’s claims, and the other was essentially a motion to recover legal costs in exploring Blue Spike’s claims. Once those were filed, Blue Spike dropped all four of its lawsuits.
In a statement, MorphoTrust asserted, “No money or any other consideration was paid to Blue Spike” in getting the lawsuits withdrawn. Scott Boylan, MorphoTrust’s General Counsel and Vice President, put the matter bluntly, saying that his company is “not the first, nor the last, to be burdened with infringement claims by entities that in our opinion have no real business model other than to sue successful companies, hoping for a ‘quick payday’ settlement from a baseless lawsuit.”
They’re strong words, but the circumstances certainly fit the description. MorphoTrust is indeed a very successful company in the world of biometrics, having secured major contracts in a range of areas and most recently been very active in passenger screening at airports with its TSA PreCheck program. The company has also received recognition from NIST and Frost & Sullivan for its technology.
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April 29, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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