By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -Apple urged a federal judge to dismiss a racketeering lawsuit by a company that accused the iPhone maker of stealing its technology to create the lucrative mobile wallet Apple Pay.
In a Monday night filing in Atlanta federal court, Apple said if the case is not dismissed, it should be transferred to a Texas judge who recently dismissed Fintiv’s related patent case.
Lawyers for Fintiv did not immediately respond on Tuesday to requests for comment.
Fintiv, based in Austin, Texas, accused Apple of misappropriating technology for Apple Pay that it had once sought to license from CorFire, a Georgia company that Fintiv bought in 2014.
Apple Pay is used in hundreds of millions of iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and MacBooks.
Fintiv said the racketeering arose from Apple’s use of Apple Pay to generate fees for credit card issuers such as Bank of America, Capital One, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, and the payment networks American Express, Mastercard and Visa.
In seeking a dismissal, Apple said Fintiv waited too long to pursue most of its federal and state claims, having known the underlying facts since 2014, and failed to show a pattern of racketeering.
“The court should reject Fintiv’s attempt to revive its failed patent case in a new district with no connection to the facts,” Apple said.
Absent a dismissal, Apple said the case should be sent to U.S. District Judge Alan Albright in Waco, Texas, to promote efficiency, because he has spent nearly seven years overseeing the underlying dispute and is familiar with the facts and law.
Fintiv is appealing Albright’s August 4 dismissal of its patent case.
Albright once oversaw nearly 25% of all U.S. patent cases, being viewed as a favored judge for many plaintiffs suing large technology companies such as Apple.
That concentration ended in 2022 when new patent cases were randomly farmed out to all judges in his district.
The case is Fintiv Inc v Apple Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia, No. 25-04413.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
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