Apple’s long-running battle with patent-holding entity VirnetX took another expensive turn Friday as Apple was ordered to pay $502.8 million for infringing on the company’s patents.
The verdict was decided by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Apple and VirnetX have been battling back and forth since 2010.
Out of appeals, Apple cut a check to VirnetX for more than $454 million to end a lengthy patent infringement case.
VirnetX, which sued Apple over patents relating to FaceTime, iMessage and VPN technologies, announced the payment in a one-paragraph press release Friday.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear Apple’s appeal of a $440 million judgment in one of many patent infringement suits brought by internet security firm VirnetX more than ten years ago.
The justices rejected Apple’s appeal in the long-running case in which a federal jury in 2016 found that Apple had infringed VirnetX’s patents and awarded $302 million. A judge later increased that amount to $439.7 million including interest and other costs.
Cupertino’s seemingly neverending legal battle with patent troll VirnetX Holding Corp. took another turn this week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied Apple’s request to reconsider an original patent-infringement decision.
VirnetX and Apple have been fighting in courts for a decade over patents related to FaceTime and other secure communications. VirnetX, which doesn’t produce any products, previously won more than $503 million in damages, but courts subsequently threw out the award.
Apple won a round in court against VirnetX, a company often accused of being patent troll. An appeals court threw out $503 million award that the iPhone maker was ordered to pay in an earlier ruling.
However, the court didn’t reverse the original patent-infringement decision, just the amount of the award.
Apple wants another shot at beating so called patent troll VirnetX in court.
The Cupertino company was previously ordered to pay $439 million for infringing on two of VirnetX’s patents with its FaceTime technology. However, an appeals court has since found many of VirnetX’s patents to be unpatentable.
A U.S. appeals court has upheld a $440 million judgment against Apple by “patent troll” VirnetX, an intellectual property licensing firm which has been battling Apple for years.
VirnetX won a $302 million verdict against Apple in 2016. That figure has now grown to $440 million thanks to interest, enhanced damages, and additional costs.
At WWDC, Apple revealed that it will finally make it possible to do FaceTime group calls for up to 32 people. That’s great news — provided that all your friends, family and co-workers use Apple devices.
But it didn’t have to be like this. Back in 2010, when Steve Jobs introduced FaceTime, he made a big point about how it was set to become an open industry standard that could be used by Apple’s competitors, as well as Apple. Nearly a decade on, that still hasn’t happened. And now a theory has emerged as to why.
Apple must pay $502.6 million to patent holding company (read: so-called “patent troll”) VirnetX Holding Corp., a federal jury in Texas has ordered.
This is the latest installment in a dispute that now stretches back eight years. The patents Apple has allegedly infringed one include ones related to secure communications, used by FaceTime, VPN on Demand and iMessage.
Apple has been ordered to pay a patent troll $439.7 million after losing the final ruling in the case being heard by the US District Court.
The legal battle between Apple and VirnetX is far from over though the company says. Even though it lost the ruling related to patented technology used in FaceTime, Apple says it plans to appeal the court’s ruling.
