Wells Fargo under fire from USAA over remote deposit capture patent
Wells Fargo is fighting off copyright claims
The United Services Automobile Association (USAA) is suing Wells Fargo on grounds of intellectual property charges for unspecified damages, over USAA’s remote deposit capture patents.
San Antonio-based USAA claims to have invented such tech, and thus started demanding licensing fees from banks around a year ago.
“We’ve been abundantly patient with Wells Fargo,” Nathan McKinley, a USAA vice-president and its head of corporate development, said in an interview with American Banker. “Now is the time for us to get the court’s assistance.”
Wells Fargo hasn’t commented yet on the matter.
USAA targeted Wells Fargo as it’s one of the biggest users of remote mobile deposit capture and has failed to license the technology while benefitting from its use, claims USAA.
“It is improper for Wells Fargo to use, without permission, patented technologies that USAA has spent immense resources to invent, develop, implement, and perfect,” USAA said in a complaint filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
USAA claims it has suffered “immediate and irreparable harm”, but no specifics were mentioned.
USAA provides banking services to current or former members of the armed forces, and is largely considered a digital bank. Its customers are often deployed around the world.
McKinley referred to the technology as “one of the most significant advances in digital banking within the last decade”.
USAA developed its technology internally in 2005, before launching it to customers in 2006. USAA has also had legal quarrels with Mitek over patents related to mobile RDC technology, which ended in 2014 with neither side paying the other.
