Berlin, 23. April 2020
After the inventor of Video Identification, WebID Solutions GmbH, appealed against a verdict in 2017, which alleged that the company had infringed a patent, the Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf, the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, has now proved WebID right and dismissed the case against the Berlin FinTech company.
This verdict has ended a legal battle which has been ongoing for years: the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has now dismissed the case against WebID Solutions GmbH and has ultimately concluded that WebID has not infringed a patent. The filing of an appeal against this verdict is not possible. Prior to this final decision, the Regional Court Düsseldorf had rendered a verdict in 2017, against which WebID appealed.
„This decision ensures legal certainty within our industry, which is of immense importance for healthy growth. Hence, we are naturally very happy about the verdict of the Higher Regional Court“, Frank S. Jorga, Founder and CEO of WebID explains. „Additionally, we are proud of the role we played in the invention and the continuous development of Video Ident compliant with the Geldwäschegesetz (GwG) - the German Money Laundering Act. We view this legal confirmation as a recognition of our achievements in innovation.“
„Furthermore, the time has come for partially competing companies to focus on collaboration and work together successfully in certain areas. Technological partnerships are valuable catalysts for the continuous development of our industry, and they strengthen Germanys position as a FinTech location”, Jorga adds.
The company founder already had the idea of enabling people to legitimise themselves quickly and easily via an online video chat in order to, for instance, sign legally binding contracts on the internet, in 2011. Following this, Frank S. Jorga founded WebID Solutions GmbH with three long-standing companions. After two years of intense development and numerous talks with the authorities responsible, he finally received the personal approval for his digital Video Identification from the Bundesministerium der Finanzen, the German Federal Ministry of Finance, in January 2014. For this approval, the interpretation of the Geldwäschegesetz was changed in such a way, that WebID was able to digitally legitimise individuals via video chat – as the first company in the world.
The legally compliant product WebID Video Ident generally only requires three simple steps: initially, the customer enters their personal data via their device. Then one of the agents in WebIDs high security Identcenter in Solingen in North Rhine-Westphalia examines the callers ID card via video chat to ensure its authenticity – and whether the ID photo matches the face of the caller. This process occurs according to a technology and training concept developed by WebID. If everything is correct, the customer will receive a TAN on their mobile phone, which they need to enter in order to finalise their legitimisation.
Companies can combine this process with other WebID services. Since the founding of the company, several new products have been developed: e.g. eID Ident, identification via the chip in the ID card, Automatic Ident, the fully-automated ID check based on artificial intelligence, or Database Ident, with which customers can identify themselves within seconds by accessing their own identity, which has been stored with their approval in the WebID database. This database currently contains 4.7 Million entries and is unique within the market. All the aforementioned products are part of the Global Trust Technology Platform (GTTP) developed by WebID. It also contains products by third parties, which allows the creation of entirely individual solutions for WebID clients.