PLANO, Texas – PNC Financial said it agreed to settle a Check 21 patent infringement suit by paying millions of dollars in license fees to tiny DataTreasury, which has successfully sued dozens of other big banks and transaction processors.
The license deal comes just days after a federal appeals court in San Francisco refused to dismiss DataTreasury’s patent suit against Wells Fargo, one of several banks still being sued by the patent holder.
The deal also comes after a provision barring DataTreasury’s Check 21 suits was struck from a patent reform bill being debated in the Senate. The Senate provision would have protected banks from paying damages in any patent suit over a “check-collection system.” However, the main sponsor of the provision withdraw his support after it was opposed by the U.S. Patent Office, which told him that laws shouldn’t provide “exceptions to patent protection based on a particular technology.”
DataTreasury owns the patents on several key imaging technologies that are critical to the Check 21 process and has filed suit against many of the biggest banks and transaction processors. Many of the plaintiffs have entered into multi-million dollar license agreements with Data Treasury to use the technology, among them: JP Morgan Chase, Diebold, Merrill Lynch, RDM Corp. and Zions Bank’s NetDeposit unit.
But there still are several suits pending, including those against Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
