Banks have grown accustomed to high stakes patent battles, as many have suffered at the hands of DataTreasury. But the Fiserv vs. FIS war is different in that it pits two giant vendors against one another.

Bank Systems & Technology notes that many banks are in tough spot, as they tend to use services from both companies.

“That could lead to complications down the road if Fiserv is successful in its suit and FIS has to cease offering its Payment Manager products.”

If Fiserv prevails and banks have to de-install Payment Manager products, it could cause havoc in the enterprise. Banks could end up incurring additional costs and big headaches, for which they might blame Fiserv. One expert suggests that banks may end up wary of both companies. So this could be classic case of winning the battle but losing the war, or a case of mutually assured destruction if FIS ends up filing its own patent suit, which cannot be ruled out.

Both companies are aware of all this, and the fact they couldn’t agree to some sort of settlement is remarkable. The patents in questions: “Dynamic Biller List Generation,” “Systems and Methods for Risk-Based Determination of a Form for Crediting a Payee on Behalf of a Payer” and  Method and Apparatus for Managing Multiple Accounts," seem to be of the business method variety, which have proven so controversial lately. But the legislative relief that banks won in the form of the America Invents Act may not apply to this situation.

Hopefully, this will be settled before it gets to trial.

For more:
- here’s the article

Related article:
Fiserv sues FIS over patents