A judge has denied a motion by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. to dismiss a lawsuit filed against them by SmartMetric Inc., according to court filings published Wednesday.
SmartMetric, a Las Vegas vendor of biometric payment systems, alleged that the card companies infringed on its patent for connecting to a network in their implementation of contactless cards.
The court earlier granted a motion to dismiss on grounds that SmartMetric "failed to identify adequately which of Defendants' products or components" were infringing and that the allegations made "were not sufficient to put Defendants on notice of the nature of the claim against which they must defend." It allowed SmartMetric to file an amended complaint.
SmartMetric filed its amended complaint July 27, naming the Interlink and Cirrus networks. Visa and MasterCard filed another motion to dismiss, arguing that those networks do not perform the functions SmartMetric alleges they do, but the judge said that detail should be argued at a later stage in the trial.
