The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled in favor of EyeTicket Corp. of McLean, Va., in its motion for a preliminary injunction against Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, Pa. EyeTicket alleges that Unisys has infringed two patents on iris-recognition technology that it exclusively licenses from Iridian Technologies Inc. of Marlton, N.J.

The court found that the patents, which cover the basis of EyeTicket's airline passenger processing system, are valid and that Unisys may have violated the company's exclusive rights to them. Unisys had teamed with LaserCard Systems Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., to produce optical memory cards for travelers that would include iris-based biometric information.