PNC Settles with DataTreasury

By Mark Brousseau

DataTreasury announced this week that it had settled a patent infringement lawsuit brought against The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. and PNC Bank, two of 55 defendants in active litigation in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

DataTreasury had accused PNC of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,910,988 and 6,032,137, which were issued to the Plano, Texas company in 1999 and 2000 for image capture, centralized processing and electronic storage of document and check information. DataTreasury also had accused PNC of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,265,007 and 5,717,868, which were issued in 1993 and 1996 for a central check clearing system.

The litigation had been stayed while the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office reexamined the validity of DataTreasury’s ‘988 and ‘137 patents, and has recently resumed after the Patent Office confirmed the validity of the claims of those patents and granted DataTreasury additional claims. None of the defendants in this litigation have ever proved that any of the claims of these DataTreasury patents are invalid or unenforceable, DataTreasury notes.

PNC concluded that this settlement was in the best interest of its business.

Part of the settlement is documented in the form of a Consent Judgment filed in the Marshall division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. “It is comforting to my client that the banks are doing the right thing by licensing this patented technology,” said DataTreasury’s patent and licensing counsel, Rod Cooper of Texas-based Nix, Patterson & Roach, LLP.DataTreasury has granted PNC a worldwide license for its patents.

Terms of the agreement are confidential, but they include protections for PNC’s customers, giving the bank a competitive edge in check processing, DataTreasury claims. “It is clear that PNC understands the importance of DataTreasury’s patents, which help the bank realize the benefits afforded by the underlying technology,” continued Cooper. “PNC has shown respect for our patents, and has resolved a costly court battle,” said Claudio Ballard, founder and Chairman of DataTreasury and the inventor of the company’s patented technology.

Keith DeLucia, DataTreasury’s CEO added: “PNC is the second financial institution from the Financial Services Roundtable to license our patents despite the association’s efforts to lobby the Congress for infringement immunity from our patents."

"We are now preparing to take the remaining defendants to trial,” said DataTreasury’s lead trial counsel, Nelson Roach of Nix, Patterson & Roach, LLP.