Apple will have to pay $626 million to the patent-holding company VirnetX for four patent infringements, according to the jury of a federal court in Texas.
The two products in question are iMessage and VPN on Demand. The patent infringements found in VPN security amounted to approximately $335 million, and on top of that, the various infractions found in FaceTime resulted in another $290 million.
Dubbed as a "patent troll," VirnetX doesn't have any product, and it makes money through licensing patents and following up with lawsuits. Cases like this aren't entirely new, as they still occur from time to time, especially in East Texas.
According to the verdict form (PDF), the jury ruled that Apple indeed infringed on the patent claims presented, revealing the sums of money and the consensus of the jurors.
The Cupertino brand said that it will challenge the verdict when it was asked for a comment.
"We are surprised and disappointed by the verdict and we're going to appeal. Our employees independently designed this technology over many years, and we received patents to protect this intellectual property. All four of VirnetX's patents have been found invalid by the patent office. Cases like this simply reinforce the desperate need for patent reform," an Apple spokesperson says.
This isn't the first time that Apple and VirnetX have faced each other in court, and this latest case is actually a rehashing of a dispute that dates back to 2012. The jury at the time ruled that Apple should pay about $368 million in damages. However, a U.S. appeals court decided that the jurors did not calculate the sum correctly, arranging yet another trial.
To be specific, the patents involved include the 1998 U.S. patent 7921211, where the owner name is listed as "Science Applications International Corporation." In 2006, the said patent was handed over to VirtnetX.
Meanwhile, the U.S. patent 6502135 that bears the title "Agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability" is the patent that was at issue in the 2012 trial. Despite the order of the U.S. appeals court for a rescheduled date, the recent development indicates that this was reused, where VirtnetX won a similar sum of money with the original trial.
What this entails is that the verdict will affect the patent reforms situation, where the federal court in East Texas may be the subject of scrutiny for coming patent trials.
According to critics, the authorities in the state have built a haven for patent-holding companies such as VirtnetX, where the courts in the state will find sympathetic juries that'll allow such plaintiffs to win a cash settlement. With that said, most companies prefer to settle instead of taking expensive measures to win an out-of-state trial.
The Apple v. VirtnetX case isn't setting a precedent in which the plaintiff wins a "patent trolling" trial, as Microsoft also had to deal with the patent-holding company, paying $23 million involving the video technology found in Skype.
At any rate, cases like this will pop up occasionally if things do not change, and big tech companies may have something to look out for aside from the heated competition on the market.
