As a result of the eighth year of contentious legal battles between Apple and VirnetX Holding Corp. involving iMessage, FaceTime and VPN on Demand technologies, the iPhone maker has been ordered by a jury in Texas to pay the notorious patent troll more than half a billion buckaroos.
The total amount Apple is ordered to pay up is $440 million as the per-device royalty rate was upped by fifty percent.
A jury has ordered Apple to pay $302.4 million to VirnetX Holding Corp over using its patented virtual private networking protocols in FaceTime and iMessage on the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The case will now go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington DC before VirnetX sees any payout, Reuters and Bloomberg reported today.
In February 2016, a federal jury ordered that Apple pay $625 million to VirnetX Holding Corp after being found guilty of willfully infringing on technologies found in VirnetX’s patents related to virtual private networking protocols. Friday, the judge voided that ruling after determining that the case should be revisited, CNBC reports. VirnetX alleges that its patented technology is used in FaceTime and iMessage on the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Apple has been ordered by a federal jury in east Texas to pay $625 million for patent infringement, Reuters reported late Wednesday. The jury found the iPhone maker guilty of using VirnetX’s security technology without its permission.
More specifically, Apple was found guilty of willfully infringing on technology found in VirnetX Holding Corp’s patents related to virtual private networking protocols, which Apple uses in its FaceTime and iMessage apps on iPhone and iPad.
Patent holding firm VirnetX yesterday told a federal jury that Apple should be slapped with a $532 million fine over an alleged patent infringement pertaining to FaceTime, iMessage and VPN technologies used in its products, which is nearly 45 percent higher than an initial damages award vacated last year.
According to Bloomberg, the notorious patent troll “keeps moving the boundary, asking for more and more and more,” said Apple’s lawyer.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today denied five petitions for so-called inter partes review filed by Apple, which sought to challenged the validity of certain claims of three of VirnetX’s U.S. patents at stake.
The patent board has determined that the five petitions were not filed within the time limit imposed by the statute and therefore has declined to institute review of these claims between the parties involved.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit tossed out a verdict today handed down by a Texas jury in late 2012 that would’ve forced Apple to pay $368 million to patent holding firm VirnetX. The jury determined that Apple’s FaceTime feature infringed on on the firm’s intellectual property.
The Wall Street Journal reports this afternoon that the appeals court has ruled that the verdict was “tainted” by erroneous jury instructions in the case and therefore is invalid. It also held that some trial testimony from a VirnetX IP “expert” should have been completely excluded from the case.
In March, U.S. District Judge for Eastern Texas Leonard Davis awarded patent holding firm VirnetX with an ongoing 0.98% royalty on iPhone and iPad revenues. Apple has been fighting vigorously to avoid that outcome, but its last-ditch efforts have been unsuccessful. On Friday, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied a creative strategy that Apple used to challenge the patents…
If you’re not familiar with the name VirnetX, you should be. The Internet security software and technology company (also known as a patent troll) has filed a patent infringement suit against every major tech company in the business, including Apple.
In fact, last fall Apple was ordered to pay VirnetX a staggering $368 million after a Texas jury found the iPad-maker guilty of infringing on its IP. And the battle is far from over, as the security firm just announced that it’s been awarded two new patents…
On April 5, Apple acknowledged via a support document that it “will be changing the behavior of VPN On Demand for iOS devices using iOS 6.1 and later” due to a lawsuit by patent holding firm VirnetX file against Apple in November 2011. VPN technology, which stands for Virtual Private Networking, extends corporate networks securely across public networks like the Internet, allowing users to access a private network as if they were directly connected to it.
Apple originally planned to remove the ‘Always’ configuration option for VPN On Demand with the ‘Establish if needed’ option. The revised document specifically mentions Apple will not be changing the VPN behavior on “devices that have already been shipped”…
VirnetX, a patent holding firm with an impressive intellectual property portfolio, in November 2011 sued Apple over a breach of a collection of its network patents, originally seeking north of $900 million in damages. A year later, in November 2012, a federal jury in a Texas court ordered the iPhone maker to pay $368.2 million in damages.
The two parties later worked out a royalty agreement that should be decided upon on April 12, but as a result of the damages awarded to VirnetX, Apple today has acknowledged via a support document that it “will be changing the behavior of VPN On Demand for iOS devices using iOS 6.1 and later”…
