Mitek announced on Tuesday that it appointed Fritz Hesse interim VP of Engineering. Hesse’s background includes stints at Intuit (News - Alert) and MaintenanceNet as well as a president and CEO of a tech startup that provided mobile asset management and electronic document tracking. The move follows the departure of chief technical officer Michael Strange and comes in the middle of a court battle the company has with USAA.

San Diego, Calif.-based Mitek develops mobile technologies to facilitate financial transactions. Deposits, opening accounts, transfers between accounts and payments are all functions that can be done photographically with its software. The company claims on its website to have 19 patents and over 2,500 organizations license the software with tens of millions of customers using the technology for their accounts.

The court battle between Mitek and USAA involves federal lawsuits that each company has filed against the other. In March 2012, USAA filed a complaint alleging that Mitek used information from USAA in a patent application and therefore some of Mitek’s patents do not apply to USAA.

Mitek countered with a lawsuit the next month claiming that USAA infringed on five patents connected to its Mobile Deposit solution. This complaint also alleges that USAA violated a licensing agreement and has defamed Mitek.

On August 15, the San Antonio Express-News reported that a federal court granted a motion from USAA to dismiss infringement claims on four of the five aforementioned patents. According to the article, the two parties agreed that no infringement occurred on the remaining patent.

This paints a cloudy picture for the future of Mitek. Its revenue model is based on licensing software technology and enforcing its patents is critical to that process. If the end result is that the patents apply to everyone, but not USAA, perhaps Mitek can salvage some profitability, but the recent decision deals a huge blow to its bottom line. The two companies still have remaining claims in a trial scheduled for September 8. Mitek should have a clearer understanding of its future once that trial ends.