Located in Plano, Texas, the company develops, acquires and licenses technology for secure check image capture and storage.

[7] In 2002, DataTreasury sued 56 banks and other companies, including JPMorgan Chase and First Data,[8] for infringing the Ballard patents.

[10] Affiliated Computer Services, a large information technology supplier, paid $50,000, and the RDM Corporation, a small Canadian company that sells hardware and software for payment processing, agreed to "pay a fee for each check imaging terminal it deploys and 'a per-click royalty for storage of electronic documents and check information, calculated at around a 50 percent royalty rate,'" according to a DataTreasury press release reported by The New York Times.

[6] However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that if such a provision were passed, owners of check-processing patents (such as DataTreasury) would sue the federal government, arguing that their property had been unlawfully seized.

The CBO estimated that the suit would have a high likelihood of success and that the government's liability from this lawsuit could reach $1 billion, to cover royalties of 5 cents per check, over the remaining life of the patents.

[9][16] On March 26, 2010, a jury found that U.S. Bank, Viewpointe, and Clearing House Payments Company and its subsidiary, SVPCo, were guilty of infringing DataTreasury's patents.

[6] DataTreasury has stated that Ballard is the inventor of the system and built the company to sell it before the banks stole the idea and nearly destroyed his business.