How a Small Inventor's Patents May Prove Apple Pay Was Built on Stolen Ideas

The following is adapted from The Venture Capital Alternative by Matt Moyers.

Apple Pay debuted in 2014 to widespread fanfare and changed how millions of people think about paying for things. The untold story behind that launch involves a quiet, brilliant inventor named Satoshi, and it raises uncomfortable questions about how Silicon Valley's biggest companies actually build their products.

I met Satoshi in the summer of 2019. By then, he had spent years watching Apple profit from technology he believed was his. A Stanford-educated engineer with a double PhD in electrical engineering and computer science, Satoshi had been building contactless payment inventions since the early 2000s. By 2014, when Apple Pay launched, his startup held 75 granted patents directly related to device-based payment systems.

Apple had approached Satoshi back in 2007, inviting him to join a standard-setting group alongside Microsoft and Google. He attended meetings but never signed an NDA or shared any trade secrets. His instincts told him something was wrong. "Apple was fishing for information when I met with them," he told me. "It did not feel right to engage with them, so I backed away politely."

He was right to be cautious. Rather than continuing to compete in a space being swallowed by Big Tech, Satoshi pivoted his company into IT support for professional investment managers. But his original patents remained very much alive.

When his board tasked me with assessing the value of his IP, my team spent six weeks mining his patent portfolio. We found six patent families foundational to contactless smartphone payments. Our most conservative damages estimate ran into the low billions, and that was before accounting for wearable devices like the Apple Watch.

Securing litigation funding was the next obstacle. By early 2020, we had four term sheets in hand. Then COVID-19 hit, and two funders pulled out. The two remaining offers looked very different: one provided upfront cash with a lower back-end return, while the other offered nothing upfront but two and a half times more on the outcome. Satoshi's board chose the higher back-end bet. After six more months of prior art searches, the deal finally closed.

Since then, the world has begun to catch up to what Satoshi already knew. The European Union proposed a $27 billion fine against Apple for its closed NFC payment system—the very system Satoshi invented. In 2024, Apple agreed under EU pressure to allow third-party providers access to that system. Apple only becomes reasonable when the penalty is severe enough to force the issue.

For small inventors, the path forward is difficult but navigable. It requires meticulous documentation, patient capital, and the right partners willing to go the full distance.

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For more advice on patent monetization and protecting inventor IP, you can find The Venture Capital Alternative on Amazon.

Matt Moyers is a renowned IP strategist and financial expert with over twenty-five years at the intersection of IP and finance. He has advised on more than 20,000 projects, guiding creators, inventors, and companies through IP valuation, monetization, and financial strategy. The American Invents Act’s (AIA’s) devastating impact on small inventors inspired Matt to become a passionate advocate for reform of the US patent system. Named an IAM Strategy 300 Global Leader six times, he blends financial acumen with IP expertise. He calls Denver, Colorado, home.

(Royalty free image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-paying-using-a-smartphone-4226270/, Credit: Anna Shvets)