Samsung Smartphones Infringe Fingerprint-Security Patent, Alleges Complaint

​Various models of Samsung smartphones and tablets infringe a U.S. patent describing methods of pairing a device’s “activation button" with “fingerprint authentication” security technology, alleges a complaint (in Pacer) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Jose. Samsung’s intentional infringement is “evident when Samsung encourages and instructs customers and other end users in the use and operation of the Accused Products, including use of the activation button to turn on the display and unlock the device using fingerprint authentication,” alleges plaintiff Firstface, a South Korean company and current assignee of the September 2014 patent (8,831,557). There can be no doubt Samsung knew about the invention for years because Ideazzan, Firstface’s South Korean “predecessor” company and the patent’s original assignee, tried to license or sell the intellectual property to Samsung in 2013 when it was still in the application phase, says the complaint. Samsung therefore is aware that each of its infringing products contains memory and a processor “that are specifically programmed and/or configured to implement the functionality” of fingerprint authentication described in the patent, it says. "Firstface and Ideazzan are one and the same. Simply a formal name change a few years ago," Firstface lawyer Ed Nelson emailed us Sunday. Samsung didn’t comment.