Hey, there! Log in / Register

Startup faces touchy patent lawsuit over high-tech business cards

TouchBase Business Cards - Business Cards, Reinvented.

A New York company that makes ink it says can be used to encode data on business cards to be read by smartphones is suing a Boston company that uses ink to encode data on business cards to be read by smartphones.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, Touchpac charges that Touchbase Technologies, run by participants in an MIT technology program and headquartered on Bay State Road, is violating a patent it won last year for a system that would let smartphones grab data off business cards.

Touchpac is a subsidiary of T+ink, which says it holds numerous patents on the "conductive ink" needed to make the system work. The suit alleges:

In May, 2013, Mr. Sai To Yeung, CEO of TouchBase, visited T+ink’s offices in New York and discussed T+ink’s conductive ink technology and the patented TouchCode® technology. Shortly after this meeting, Mr. Yeung and TouchBase stopped responding to correspondence from T+ink.

Touchpac wants TouchBase to cease and desist forthwith and pay it lots of money and lawyer's fees.

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon Touchpac complaint191.23 KB


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

with a QR code on the back. IT SUCKED!

up
Voting closed 0

Nice how they completely gloss over the fact that this requires you to have their app already installed on your phone.

Which is faster? Reading someone's email address off their card and typing it into your phone?

Oooooor reading "this card uses Touchgeeewhiz, download our app", navigating to the app store, trying to find the app, installing it, registering, opening the app, and then tapping the card?

People can be barely bothered to use QR codes, and those are universal/non-proprietary.

up
Voting closed 0

That's bone. And the lettering is something called Silian Rail.

Are these 'companies' making some kind of banal American Psycho joke?

up
Voting closed 0

NFC is the next big thing! It does a lot more and is a lot easier than a QR code, and less annoying.

Near Field Communication.

Some Android phones are using it but Apple has not put them on its iPhones, which of course would be the game changer.

up
Voting closed 0