Australian Patent Holding Company is Suing Apple Over Touch ID, Face ID, and Apple Card
An Australian patent holdings company on Tuesday filed suit against Apple, targeting Touch ID and Face ID with intellectual property acquired from defunct biometrics specialist Securicom.
CPC Patent Technologies in a complaint lodged with the patent holder-friendly U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas alleges Apple products protected by branded biometrics — Touch ID and Face ID — are in infringement of three patents. The Australian firm purchased the IP from the liquidation of Securicom in 2019.
CPC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Charter Pacific Corporation, which bills itself as an investment company with a focus on biometrics. The parent company on its website claims that it is the “global biometric patent holders for the enrollment of fingerprint, facial, voice recognition, and iris scanning on a mobile device or smart card.”
At issue are U.S. Patent Nos. 9,269,208, 9,665,705 and 8,620,039, all credited to Australia-based inventor Christopher Burke. The ‘208 and 705 patents date back to 2003 and deal with secure access through biometrics, while the ‘039 patent has a filing priority date of 2005 and covers biometric security of smart cards like credit cards.
