VirnetX

VirnetX (NYSE MKT: VHC) is a company founded by former engineers and executives from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) which developed security technology for the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies. These resulted in patentable technologies which secure LTE communications. Some call VirnetX a patent troll[1][2] because they expanded their Patent Portfolio beyond the original four Internet Security Patents to include more than 100 related patents, thus securing their position as a leader in mobile security technology, and based on the fact that the majority of their employees are lawyers and they have yet to commercialize any of their patents in commercial products. The company has over 80 Internet security patents worldwide, and 100 patents pending.[3]

Patents

The Company's patent portfolio includes U.S. and international patents in areas such as DNS and network communication. Since 2010, VirnetX has been in litigation with companies including Apple, Cisco, and Microsoft.[4] Separately, in December 2014, Microsoft and VirnetX settled patent disputes over Skype technology for $23 million.[5] In their Apple case, VirnetX worked together with SAIC,[6] and was awarded $368 million in damages for FaceTime infringement.[7] That ruling was partially vacated on 8/19/2014, but two patents were confirmed to be infringed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.[8] In December 2014, VirnetX opened access to their Gabriel platform, which builds upon their patents, and is implemented as small to medium sized business enterprise collaboration software.[9]

Emails from Apple's engineering staff indicated that they knew they were violating various patents. Apple has appealed rulings against it in state and federal courts and demanded a jury trial for the VirtnetX case. In February 2016 an East Texas jury unanimously ruled in federal court that Apple had willfully violated 13 VirnetX patents. The jury said Apple must pay VirnetX $625.6 million for infringing four of the patents, and the court was considering ongoing royalty rates and punitive damages. [10] At Apple's request, the ruling was vacated in August 2016 and the case sent back to be retried separating the patents into two groups. VirnetX has filed an injunction to block sales of Facetime and iMessage, claiming that its own platforms are suffering. The first retrial, conducted Sept 26-Sept 30, 2016 resulted in another unanimous jury verdict for VirnetX. [11] The verdict re-affirmed patent violations enabling Facetime and iMessage and awarded $302 million to VirnetX. The remaining 2 patents will be tried separately

Stock

VirnetX stock is traded on the NYSE under symbol VHC.

References

  1. ↑ Phelps, Marshall. "An Innovation Jason Bourne Would Love".
  2. ↑ "How VirnetX beat Apple: The strange case of the patent trolls".
  3. ↑ "VirnetX Bolsters". Retrieved 4 Aug 2014.
  4. ↑ "Company - VirnetX".
  5. ↑ Armental, Richard. "VirnetX, Microsoft Settle Patent Dispute Over Skype". wsj.
  6. ↑ Smith, Gina. "Who is VirnetX? Apple To Pay $368 Million to IBM? NSA? CIA? Who?". A New Domain. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  7. ↑ Bell, Killian. "U.S. Court Orders Apple To Pay $368 Million Damages For FaceTime Patent Infringement". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 Aug 2014.
  8. ↑ (PDF) https://web.archive.org/web/20150522201411/http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/13-1489.Opinion.9-12-2014.1.PDF. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 22, 2015. Retrieved September 19, 2014. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. ↑ "VirnetX Opens Gabriel Beta Program". VirnetX.
  10. ↑ Joe Mullin, Jury: Apple must pay $626 million to patent troll VirnetX, Ars Technica, February 4, 2016
  11. ↑ Andrew Liptak, , The Verge, October 1, 2016

External links

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