A U.S. judge has ordered Apple to pay over $368 million to a company related to a FaceTime patent dispute.
Connecticut-based VirnetX said the FaceTime feature found in several Apple devices infringes on patents owned by the company. VirnetX had originally sought for $708 million in damages, but, pending an appeal from Apple, will have to settle for the amount awarded by the judge.
VirnetX operates as an internet security software and technology firm that has been granted patented technology for 4G LTE security. The court case is related to allegations that the FaceTime application violates four VirnetX patents registered between 2002 and 2011.
Although Apple won't be hurt too much with the fine, VirnetX's court case win could back up a claim filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that may potentially lead to a sales ban of Apple's more popular products.
The company said Apple should have paid license fees for its technologies, which consists of a method of creating a secure communication link between different types of system via Tunneled Agile Routing Protocol (TARP).
Speaking after the verdict, VirnetX CEO Kendal Larsen said the firm's win "further establishes the importance of our patent portfolio." A lawyer for the company added that it would file an order seeking to block "further use of its inventions."
VirnetX has also won a similar patent lawsuit against Microsoft, resulting in a payment of $200 million in 2010. It has also taken Cisco, Siemens and other technology firms to court over its patents.
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Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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g00fysmiley as much as i like to see apple get patent trolled like they do to everybody else... some of these companies that exist like rambus just to patent ideas and make royalties are bad for the consumer in the end as they pay for it... i don't knwo enough about vernetX to say if they are that kind of company but tha tthey also have a large suit won from m$ and m$ didn't just buy them out makes me suspect that they areReply -
ohim Patents ... making lazy bastards rich bastards ... even though i hate Apple to the bone ... is not fair that some random ass company that holds a patent to something and does nothing with the ideea to get rich on the back of other companies that actually do something with those ideeas.Reply -
Rosanjin I usually groan whenever I see a patent lawsuit headline, due to the rampant patent-trolling and flagrant displays of the "monopolization by litigation" attitude.Reply
That said, I think this is one of the increasingly rare cases where the system is doing its job correctly. Good for VirnetX, since it seems they were truly victimized by several big boy companies who thought they would get away with it unscathed. -
razor512 why cant they do a patent clensing where every patent currently on record is looked at and if the patent holder has had the patent for longer than 5 years and has no product being sold or produced that uses the patent, then the patent becomes blacklisted and anyone can use the idea and no one can ever patent it again.Reply
additional details
Imagine this, if you file a patent, you have 1 year to show product (eg a prototype) that implements the patent, then after that, you have 5 years to to produce a final product or at least have a beta unit with plans finalized to bring the product to market.
Those rules can then be retroactively applied to all patents and patents that do not fit in the rules are blacklisted.
This will mostly get rid of patent trolls and also put more on the line for companies that simply want to pstent something that is done now but with a future technology so that the moment someone else makes the actual product, they can sue them. -
castle songbird RosanjinI usually groan whenever I see a patent lawsuit headline, due to the rampant patent-trolling and flagrant displays of the "monopolization by litigation" attitude.That said, I think this is one of the increasingly rare cases where the system is doing its job correctly. Good for VirnetX, since it seems they were truly victimized by several big boy companies who thought they would get away with it unscathed.Reply
You know nothing about the specifics of how much of an accomplishment developing the technology in question was. Whether it was a unique approach that the programmers at apple would never have thought of or been able to develop otherwise or just the next logical step in network unification and it never should of been patented in the first place is not clear from the article. Your making assumptions. -
spookyman g00fysmileyas much as i like to see apple get patent trolled like they do to everybody else... some of these companies that exist like rambus just to patent ideas and make royalties are bad for the consumer in the end as they pay for it... i don't knwo enough about vernetX to say if they are that kind of company but tha tthey also have a large suit won from m$ and m$ didn't just buy them out makes me suspect that they areReply
Why because they want to get paid for their patented idea? Apple would have sued them if they stole one of their ideas.