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Intellectual-property company Unwired Planet Inc. is suing Square Inc. alleging Square’s mobile-payments technologies infringe on three of its patents, Unwired Planet announced Monday.
The suit asserts that mobile point-of-sale provider Square infringes on patents for wireless transactions and location-based services as used in Square Wallet, and location-based notifications as used in Square Wallet and Square Register. Square Wallet is a consumer-facing mobile-payments and loyalty service, and Square Register is a mobile-payments service for small businesses.
Square contests the allegations. “This lawsuit is without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously,” a Square spokesman tells Digital Transactions News. Unwired Planet would not comment on the suit, filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.
A search of the U.S. Patent Office’s Web site found that Unwired Planet’s patent 7,711,100 on wireless transactions was filed April 17, 2006. Patent 7,736,433 on location-based services was filed Dec. 17, 2004, and patent 8,275,359 on location-based notification was filed June 3, 2011.
Reno, Nev.-based Unwired Planet is a patent holding company. In September 2012, it filed suit against Apple Inc. and Google Inc. alleging they infringed separately on 10 patents each. Generally, the allegations against Apple centered on its mobile devices and how they retrieve information. Google faced allegations on its search and advertising systems and how it used near-field communication technology. Neither Apple nor Google responded to Digital Transactions News inquiries.
The case against Apple continues, according to a Web site of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where it was transferred in September. The Google case, which remains in Nevada, also is pending.
Patent lawsuits are not uncommon, especially for successful and highly visible companies like Square, says Mary Monahan, executive vice president and research director for mobile at consulting firm Javelin Strategy & Research.
Patent laws are intended to product inventors, something that may not hold true in some instances, she says. “There are companies that develop technologies and those that try to get the patents,” Monahan says. “It’s just a game to these companies.”
Formed in 2012, Unwired Planet was born out of the decision to sell the telecommunications-services businesses once operated under the Openwave Systems Inc. banner. Those businesses, now called Openwave Mobility and Openwave Messaging, are owned by a private investment firm. Publicly traded Unwired Planet held onto about 200 patents from its predecessor. Unwired Planet now says it has more than 2,400 U.S. and foreign patents.
