A growing legal battle between HR technology company Rippling and AI security startup Runlayer has escalated into a patent dispute, with Rippling accusing the young company of infringing three of its patents related to data and software technology. From Potential Partnership to Legal BattleThe dispute reportedly began after Rippling evaluated Runlayer’s technology. Runlayer, a New York-based AI security startup, develops technology designed to help companies control and monitor how AI agents interact with enterprise software and data. MCP gateways sit between AI agents and the systems they need to access. As startups develop new infrastructure around AI agents, questions over who owns particular technological ideas are becoming increasingly important.