Meridian Enterprises Corp. said Friday that it settled out of court a patent-infringement lawsuit against Visa U.S.A.
Visa had countersued Meridian, a marketing services company that has been protecting a patent for a cardholder rebate process. Nothing of their settlement was disclosed except that Visa member banks can enter licensing agreements with Meridian for existing or new card programs.
St. Louis-based Meridian claimed patent protection for a process by which rebates are credited electronically to cardholders' accounts, with points that translate into dollars. It initiated lawsuits against Visa and others in 1994.
"Visa is pleased to have this matter settled in an amicable, equitable fashion that we believe best serves the interest of our member banks," the card association said in a statement. "We have always approached this matter as an opportunity to provide our members with options in their cobranded card programs, and we are gratified to have reached an agreement that satisfies that objective."
"We're making steady, forward progress," said Michael L. Fraser, Meridian executive vice president, in an interview Friday. "We'd certainly prefer not to be spending our time litigating, but unfortunately we own a patent and we have to protect our rights under the patent law; otherwise, everybody could steal our ideas."
Meridian had previously settled with a card issuer, Associates First Capital Corp., and with Union Oil Company of California, Amoco, Phillips Petroleum, and Total Petroleum.
A suit against-along with countersuits filed by-Chase Manhattan Corp., MasterCard International, and Shell Oil Co. over Shell's MasterCard program remains pending in a U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
On Friday, Chase spokeswoman Charlotte Gilbert-Biro said, "We believe Chase will prevail on the merits of the case."
Privately held Meridian specializes in employee incentive programs and has licensed its patents to a number of large corporations.
The card-rebate settlements came after the U.S. District Court's ruling last year that the Meridian patent was broad enough to cover the Shell and Unocal incentive award programs.
