Africa: China Court Upholds Taisys Thin SIM Card Patents

Taiwan based Taisys Technologies, won a thin SIM card patent litigation in the Higher People's Court of Beijing Municipality of China.

Taisys Technologies is an international telecommunications and financial service provider which provides value-added services via its thin SIM card technology across the globe. In China, 15 million mobile banking subscribers are using Taisys' thin SIM cards.

The Taisys' patents were challenged by two companies, including Watchdata - one of the largest Chinese legacy SIM card providers, in 2011.

After two years of litigation, the Higher People's Court of Beijing Municipality in Oct 2013 ruled Taisys' patents to be valid in China.

In January 2014, another appeal was made to Supreme People's Court of China to retry the case.

Eventually, in May 2016, the Beijing Higher People's Court upheld the verdict re-confirming Taisys patent validation.

The patent was applied in December 2005 and approved by the Patent Re-examination Board of the SIPO in April 2009. This win along with patents in 47 other countries will help Taisys to further its international footprint.

In Kenya, in partnership with Equitel, Taisys is the only thin SIM card based mobile banking solution provider approved by Kenyan Government.

Equitel, subsidiary of Equity Bank, recently won Sh1 billion funding from MasterCard Foundation for innovation based on Taisys' technology, to assist with development of financial inclusion services in the rural areas of Kenya.

In India, Taisys has partnered up with Yes Bank, India's largest Greenfield bank, introducing a thin SIM enabled payments solutions for financial inclusion. The YES PAYMENTS wafer is linked to a Prepaid Wallet which can be loaded by the consumer to perform various types of transactions. The transactions are performed using a patented encrypted SMS technology to communicate with the servers of the Bank.

National Payment Corporation of India is also collaborating with Taisys to build a common platform to provide mobile banking to all other banks.