BASF sues Apple over Face ID patents in Texas federal court

The world’s largest chemical company is suing Apple over Face ID. BASF filed a patent infringement claim on Thursday, alleging that dozens of iPhone and iPad models use face authentication technology covered by patents it owns.

The case was reported by Reuters and was filed in federal court in Texas, in the Western District that has become a popular venue for patent cases against technology companies.

The products named in the case go back to the iPhone X. Face ID launched with that model in 2017, meaning the claim comes almost nine years after the technology first appeared and potentially covers years of accumulated damages.

The more unusual part is how a chemical company ended up owning patents related to face authentication. BASF makes coatings, catalysts and agricultural chemicals, so the patents most likely came through an acquisition rather than from its own work in the field.

BASF has not explained where the patents came from. It has also not said which of its businesses filed the case, which patents are being asserted, or how much it is seeking from Apple.

Also, Apple has not commented. That is fairly standard for a newly filed patent case, and none of the claims have yet been tested in court.

The choice of venue is unlikely to be random. The Western District of Texas has developed a reputation for handling patent cases quickly and for juries that can be receptive to claims against large technology companies, making it a regular choice for patent plaintiffs.

Apple has dealt with that environment before. It was ordered to pay $625m over FaceTime and iMessage patents, and separately spent years fighting VirnetX, which resulted in a $368.2M award followed by further complaints.

Other claims have followed. A Chinese AI company sued Apple for $1.43bn over Siri, while a Philips and Sony joint venture targeted the company over security inventions.

Face ID is also closely tied to Apple’s core business. It is used to authenticate payments, unlock banking apps and secure the device itself, making it more fundamental than a typical software feature and potentially increasing the value of any infringement claim.

An injunction is unlikely to be the main concern. Courts rarely take products of this scale off the market because of a patent dispute, while US law generally limits patent damages to the six years before a complaint is filed. The more likely fight is over money.

BASF also makes this case somewhat harder to dismiss as a conventional patent licensing dispute. It is a publicly traded industrial company with its own research operation rather than a business built primarily around acquiring patents, and it has the resources to pursue a long legal battle.

That could affect any settlement, too. A company that does not rely on patent income has less reason to accept a relatively small payment and more reason to establish what it believes its technology is worth.

Biometric authentication is particularly open to this kind of dispute. Face ID combines infrared projection, depth mapping and neural matching, drawing on research from several fields that existed long before Apple brought the pieces together in a consumer device.

BASF is based in Germany, where Apple has encountered determined patent holders before. European industrial companies have accumulated large patent portfolios through decades of research, and some have shown they are willing to take those disputes to US courts rather than settle through licensing.

None of that says whether BASF’s patents will survive scrutiny. Claims of this size often become much narrower once a court examines the patents in detail, and many eventually end in settlements whose terms remain private.

For now, there is not much more to go on. Until the complaint becomes public, what is known is the plaintiff, the defendant, the technology being challenged, and the court hearing the case.