IT House News on September 4, Reuters published a blog post yesterday (September 3), reporting that German chemical company BASF has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in the United States, accusing Apple of infringing its facial authentication technology patents.
According to reports, the case has been submitted to the Midland Branch of the U.S. Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas. The plaintiff is trinamiX GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BASF, accusing Apple’s Face ID of multiple iPhones, iPads and other products of infringing on seven patents held by trinamiX.
The devices involved include iPhone 15 series, iPhone 16 series, iPhone 17 series, iPad Pro and other products. BASF has asked the court to stop further infringement, but the report did not disclose the amount of the relevant claims.
Reuters said the focus of the lawsuit is the materials used by Face ID and the skin detection capabilities. BASF says the technology is used to reduce the risk of photos, 3D-printed masks and silicone replicas tricking face unlock systems.
In the past nine months as of June 27, Apple’s iPhone sales were US$196.5 billion (IT House note: the current exchange rate is approximately 1.32 trillion yuan), and iPad sales were US$21.7 billion (the current exchange rate is approximately 146.181 billion yuan). The outcome of the case may affect patent licensing and product design arrangements for facial authentication technology.
According to the complaint, the origins of Tramax’s technology can be traced back to 2010. At that time, BASF scientists made an unexpected discovery while studying organic solar cells and used this to develop an early 3D camera prototype.
BASF established Tramax in 2014 as an independent entity to develop advanced 3D sensing and material inspection technologies. According to the complaint, Tramax currently has more than 800 authorized or pending patents worldwide.
