Trintech has been cleared by a US International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation relating to the importation of certain types of technology equipment, the software firm said yesterday.

The ITC investigation was instituted based on a complaint by the US firm Verve, dated September 2004, which claimed that Trintech, among others, had imported point-of-sale terminals into the US that infringed a patent held by Verve.

Trintech designs and distributes point-of-sale terminals for retailers to process credit card payments.

Trintech said the ITC had issued a decision at the end of November not to review an earlier determination by an administrative law judge of the ITC, which found that there was no evidence of importation of the allegedly infringing point-of-sale terminals by Trintech into the US.

It said that the decision effectively meant that the ITC's investigation of Trintech in this matter has come to a close.