FaceTec gets Jumio’s law firm in liveness patent dispute disqualified

Law firm Perkins Coie has been disqualified as Jumio’s legal representation for the lawsuit filed against it by FaceTec over alleged violations of patents covering the latter’s flagship biometric liveness detection technology, ZoOm.

Perkins represented FaceTec when it was a new startup, mostly in 2014 and 2015, according to a court order hosted by Bloomberg Law. FaceTec’s only product at the time was its 3D liveness detection. During that time, FaceTec CEO Kevin Alan Tussy discussed “public relations, investments, marketing and strategies for patent protection” with a Perkins corporate partner, and sent him a slide deck marked “strictly confidential” which was presented to Mastercard in August, 2015, and included information on ZoOm’s key differentiators.

Three other Perkins attorneys also represented FaceTec in patent-related matters between February of 2014 and July of 2015.

The first of the patents Jumio allegedly violated when it switched from FaceTec to iProov as its liveness provider was filed in July, 2015.

An entity affiliated with Perkins took equity in FaceTec as part of its payment, FaceTec says, and the company received confidential information related to the current litigation.

Whether the commercial success of ZoOm is a result of the innovations in the patent “rather than other differentiators” could potentially be a key in assessing how obvious the asserted patents were as of July, 2015, according to the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin described Perkins’ conclusion that it does not have a conflict of interest as “understandable,” given that it did not work directly on the patents at issue. Lin ruled that despite this, the “substantial risk” that information Perkins received at that could become material was sufficient to grant the request for the firm’s disqualification.

The patent work Perkins did for FaceTec does not form an adequate basis for disqualification, Lim writes, but the “general corporate and intellectual property counseling does.”

Motions to stay the case pending a review, to judge whether the “claims lack patentable subject matter,” and two to strike FaceTec’s infringement contentions have all been denied but without prejudice, so they may be refiled once the stay for Jumio to find new representation is lifted.

Jumio has been given until April 30 to find new counsel or provide a written explanation for why it could not.

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Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  FaceTec  |  Jumio  |  Jumio Liveness  |  lawsuits