Jury finds Blackhawk infringed on InComm patent

Gift card mall innovator and Safeway Inc. subsidiary Blackhawk Network reported that a jury in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin found that the Pleasanton, Calif-based gift card distributor was guilty of patent infringement against its rival, Atlanta-based prepaid card distributor InComm.

Blackhawk said the lawsuit, originally filed by e2Interactive Inc. and Interactive Communications International Inc. (InComm) in October 2009, related to eight lines of source code that were part of Blackhawk's gift card activation platform. Blackhawk said those eight lines of code were never used and have been removed from Blackhawk's platform.

Blackhawk said the Feb. 28, 2012, court decision concerning InComm's patent infringement claim (relating to U.S. Patent No. 7,578,439) directed Blackhawk to pay the plaintiff $3.475 million in damages. Blackhawk is weighing whether to appeal the verdict, noting that the same court previously found that Blackhawk did not infringe on another of InComm's patents (U.S. Patent No. 7,630,926) that involved the prepaid card reload process at the POS.

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