Standard Bank, MTN Have Court Date in Supplier’s Patent Dispute
Standard Bank Group Ltd. and MTN Group Ltd. (MTN) are scheduled to go to South Africa’s second-highest court on Aug. 1 to defend themselves in a technology supplier’s lawsuit over a credit-card security feature.
3MFuture Africa Ltd., a Seychelles-based company with offices in Cape Town, is seeking damages from the MTN Mobile Money Ltd. remote-banking joint venture for violating a patent on a system allowing consumers to switch credit cards on or off via mobile phone to prevent illicit use, the software developer said in an e-mailed statement.
Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender, said in April 2010 that it had received a summons in the dispute. The Johannesburg- based bank will defend itself in the case, Erik Larsen, a spokesman, said today in a phone interview, declining to comment further. Bridget Bhengu, a spokeswoman at Johannesburg-based phone company MTN, said she couldn’t immediately comment.
3MFuture Africa held more than 30 meetings about the system with Standard Bank and MTN representatives, Wolfram Reiners, a director at the technology company, said in a phone interview. The meetings took place in 2001 and 2002, Willem Steenkamp, a spokesman for 3MFuture, said by phone.
The case is scheduled to be heard over the course of two weeks in the Patent Court of the South African High Court in Pretoria, 3MFuture said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sikonathi Mantshantsha in Johannesburg at smantshantsh@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net
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