KUALA LUMPUR (June 22): Shares of Iris Corporation Bhd jumped 6.25% in early trade today after the company filed a suit against the US government.

In a statement June 12, Iris Corp had said that that arising from IRIS Corp v. Japan Airlines Corp case (Fed.Cir. 2014), Iris was suing the US Federal Government for reasonable compensation for the unlicensed manufacture and use of Iris’ US Patent No:6,111,506 entitled “Method of making an Improved Security Identification Document Including Contactless Communication Insert Unit “ (506 Patent).  

The company said the 506 Patent contains claims directed to a process for manufacturing a secure electronic passport consisting of computer chip embedded in a multi-layered document which contains biographical or biometric data about the passport holder.

Iris Trusted Identification division chief executive officer Datuk Hamdan Mohd Hassan said the company was confident that as the registered patent owner of the 506 Patent for manufacturing and use of ePassports in the United States, Malaysia, Germany, Holland, UK, South Africa and Hong Kong, the chances of success for this case was deemed favourable.

“The ePassport is a Malaysian invention which has been commercially exploited by other companies around the world. 

“We filed this lawsuit to protect our intellectual property (IP) rights since the ePassport was a result of our research and idea,” he said.