Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) are in this one together, and we're not talking a battle for retail supremacy here. The two mega discount retailers face an ongoing patent lawsuit over their use of RFID technology to keep track of warehouse and retail inventory levels and automated ordering and processing.

It's hard to imagine a commodity technology being used in so many ways by retailers the world over being patented, but that's just what Houston, Tx. citizen Ronald Bormaster is claiming. Bormaster's RFID patent covers RFID in a way that ensures pallets and units of merchandise don't "collide" when being handled in an automated fashion, and he assigned the patent to a Houston company called "RFID World" -- which is not even using the system on a commercial basis to this day.

Wal-Mart and Target both have asked the patent lawsuit to be thrown out, arguing that it has no merit and that Bormaster's patent isn't a patent in the first place. The retailers say, based on a 2005 University of Arkansas study, that RFID allows in-store merchandise to be replenished three times more quickly when RFID is involved as opposed to manually-scanned bar code systems. Would customers see visible inconveniences in stores if this patent lawsuit was won by Bormaster and RFID was no longer allowed to be used by the two retailers? They say yes. Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG)'s Gillette brand is also involved with this dispute since it's a large proponent of using RFID in its mass production facilities with its partners. All three companies want the case to be thrown out in its entirety.