Tomas Chlebek Since 2010, patent disputes between Apple and the company VirnetX, which specializes in patent ownership and lawsuits against infringing companies, have been going on. Her previous successful lawsuits concerned, for example, Microsoft, Cisco, Siemens, etc. The current court decision against Apple is the result of an almost six-year series of lawsuits related to patent infringement by iMessage and FaceTime services, more specifically their VPN capabilities.
The decision was issued yesterday in the federal district court of East Texas, which is known for its friendliness to patent owners. VirnetX also filed some of the previously mentioned lawsuits in the same district.
The original lawsuit in which VirnetX sued Apple over their secure communications protocols was settled in April 2012, when the plaintiff was awarded $368,2 million in intellectual property damages. Because the lawsuit involved both the features themselves and the products offering them, VirnetX almost got paid a percentage of the profits from iPhones and Macs.
Apple has FaceTime since then reworked, but in September 2014 the original verdict was overturned due to an alleged miscalculation of damages. In the renewed process, VirnetX asked for $532 million, which was further increased to the current amount of $625,6 million. This takes into account the alleged continuation of willful infringement of the patents that are the subject of the dispute.
Before the current ruling, Apple is said to have filed a motion with District Judge Robert Schroeder to declare the trial a mistrial due to alleged misrepresentation and confusion by VirnetX's lawyers during closing arguments. Schroeder has not yet officially commented on the request.
