Suprema Inc.

Suprema, Inc., a leading global provider of biometrics and ID solutions, today announced it got favorable ruling against Cross Match Technologies from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC).

On December 13, 2013, CAFC issued its decision regarding the appeal from the decision of the USITC (U.S. International Trade Commission) in the patent infringement action between Suprema and Cross Match Technologies.

In the decision, the CAFC vacated the ITC’s previous judgment that Suprema induced infringement by Mentalix of U.S. Patent No. 7,203,344 (the ‘344 patent), and also affirmed the ITC’s previous judgment that Suprema’s RealScan products did not infringe any claim of U.S. Patent No. 7,277,562 (the ‘562 patent, what Cross Match widely advertises as its “auto-capture” patent).

While the CAFC also affirmed the ITC’s previous ruling that Suprema’s Realscan-10 live scanner infringed Cross Match’s U.S. Patent No. 5,900,993 (the ‘993 patent), the Realscan-10 had been discontinued by Suprema years ago and replaced by its successor, the RealScan-G10.

As a result, the CAFC found that Suprema is not liable for infringement of any of Cross Match’s software patents-in-suit (‘the 562 patent and the ‘344 patent), and found infringement of only the ‘993 patent by a single product, the Realscan-10, which has long been discontinued. Thus, there are no import restrictions on Suprema’s current line of live scanners in the United States. Suprema further assures its customers that any ruling from the CAFC is limited to the United States and will have no legal effect on Suprema’s live scanner business outside the United States.