January 9, 2013 - SmartMetric Inc., a company that developed biometric ATM and banking cards for use in protecting the carrier against identity theft, sued Visa and MasterCard for allegedly infringing its patent. A federal court has now scheduled a jury trial in the case for September of this year.
According to SmartMetric, Visa and MasterCard have begun issuing EMV cards. EMV, which stands for "Europay, MasterCard and Visa," is a global standard for integrated circuit (IC) cards used at POS terminals and ATMs to authenticate transactions.
The patent at suit is U.S. Patent No. 6,792,464.