Innoviti sues Pine Labs for using its patented UPI payments tech for PoS terminals, gets interim relief
After Innoviti Payment Solutions' infringement suit, court bars Pine Labs from 'using, manufacturing, selling, etc….any system/product/technology covered by the suit patent'.
Bengaluru-based digital payments provider Innoviti on Wednesday said it had filed an infringement suit against Pine Labs Pvt Ltd, related to its processing technology that enables UPI payments at retail Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals, in the City Civil Court, Bengaluru. The court case was filed on July 11, according to Innoviti.
Innoviti has been granted an ex-parte ad interim injunction against Pine Labs with effect from July 16, 2019. This, with immediate effect, prevents Pine Labs from manufacturing, selling, distributing, advertising, exporting, offering for sale, procuring, and dealing with this technology through its Plutus Smart or any other device in India.
Rajeev Agarwal, CEO, Innoviti Payment Solutions
Innoviti’s invention for payments processing using transaction-specific dynamic-QR technology was granted a patent (Patent No 309274) on March 15 this year, by the Indian Patent Office. Patent rights will be in force till March 29, 2037.
The technology enables processing of payments using UPI, Bharat QR, and other QR-based payment forms through the same PoS devices that are normally used for accepting credit and debit card payments.
A query sent to Pine Labs remained unanswered at the time of publishing this article. The story will be updated once we receive a comment.
Innoviti has licensed this technology to several partner financial organisations and is currently in discussions with more. Transaction through this technology involves scanning a dynamically generated QR code from the display screen of a regular credit or debit card PoS terminal. Once scanned, the PoS terminal automatically initiates a payment authorisation request on the user’s mobile app, which leads to a UPI payment charge slip being printed and confirmatory SMS being generated.
Unlike a single static-printed QR code used across all transactions at a merchant, the dynamic QR is generated uniquely for each individual payment transaction. Further, compared to static QR-based payments, the use of dynamic QR codes enables more frictionless, less error-prone cashier-customer interaction, and ensures better fraud control and more secure transaction processing.
Across India, Innoviti claims to process around $5 billion in payments annually from over 1,000+ cities. It has filed 16 patent applications in the areas of automatic acquirer fallback, auto settlement, dynamic QR on payment terminals, and others.
Innoviti’s investors include Catamaran Ventures, SBI Ven Capital, Singapore and Bessemer Venture Partners, US.
