Dispute over Square card reader patent gets litigious

Dispute over Square card reader patent gets litigious

As folks who follow such things may be aware, there’s been some dispute over the origin of Square’s card reader technology more or less since the company (led by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey) went public with it last year. That dispute has now gotten even more contentious, however, with Square and its chairman, James McKelvey, taking aim at REM Holdings and Robert Morley, who actually holds the patent to the technology. The key issue is that McKelvey is not listed as one of the inventors in the patent, despite claims that he was the one that actually conceived the idea in a “flash of inventive insight,” and that he and Morley worked together to develop the idea (and later discussed obtaining patent protection with Jack Dorsey). And that’s pretty much where things stand at the moment — Square is requesting a court order to add McKelvey as a co-inventor on the patent, but there’s no indication as to when or if that will happen.

Dispute over Square card reader patent gets litigious originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tags: digital-messenger-readerpatent, digital-square-reader, f, nickull-hen-ho, Reader, square-digital-card-reader, square-digital-reader, university-of-glasgow