Patent Infringement Case Involving Square

In 2014, payment provider Square was sued by Robert Morley in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division for patent infringement and breach of fiduciary duty. Morley claimed that he had worked with Square’s co-founders, Jack Dorsey and James McKelvey, Jr., in 2009 to develop a method for accepting credit card transactions using a mobile phone and that he had invented the hardware device that Square used as its credit card reader. Compass Lexecon was retained on behalf of Square and Square’s co-founders to evaluate Plaintiff’s claims regarding liability and potential damages. Compass Lexecon President Professor Daniel R. Fischel filed a report and testified at deposition that the economic evidence did not support Plaintiffs’ claims that Dr. Morley was entitled to hundreds of millions of dollars in Square stock and that damages, if any, should be minimal. The case was settled prior to trial. Square and the firm’s co-founders were represented by Orin Snyder and Brian Ascher of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Professor Fischel was supported by a Compass Lexecon team headed by David Gross, Rahul Sekhar and Tim McAnally.