Expensify Files Patent Suit Against Abacus

Expensify has filed a lawsuit against its T&E competitor Abacus Labs alleging patent infringement.

Expensify published a blog post Friday (June 2) announcing the suit. Penned by Expensify founder and CEO David Barrett, the post delves into the spirit of innovation and Expensify’s ability to develop travel and expense management technology before explaining the lawsuit.

In the last paragraph, the post says Expensify is suing Abacus Labs “for infringement of two of our most core patents surrounding receipt scanning and, most importantly, the automatic matching of the scanned receipt to a credit card feed.”

Barrett directs the reader to court documents “for all the gory details.”

“One fantastic aspect of technology is that it’s easier than ever to copy,” the executive writes. “This ‘second-mover advantage’ obtained by copying the innovation of others is well known, and is the general basis for patent law. And despite the enormous cost in both time and money (at a time when both were scarce), we chose to invest in both this technology and the patents to protect them.”

This year, Expensify announced a partnership with TravelPerk to offer their joint solutions to customers. Meanwhile, Abacus revealed its own partnership with Intacct in December to facilitate real-time sharing of data between the T&E and ERP platforms.

Abacus had not yet commented on the lawsuit or the allegations from Expensify as of press time.