Apple has been ruled to pay patent holding company, VirnetX $625.6 million for infringing four patents by an East Texas Jury. VirnetX has no product and makes its earnings solely through patent litigation.
The jury has started delivering the verdict at 4.00 pm (Central Time) on Tuesday and resumed deliberations on Wednesday. The verdict has been uploaded in the public courts' database after 3.00 pm, reports ARS Technica citing court records as the source.
VirnetX has first sued Apple in 2010 over the allegation of using Virtual Private Network (VPN) patents in FaceTime Video Chats. The Californian tech giant has allegedly earned hundreds of millions of dollars out of the folks. The patent litigation company has become quite successful to convince the jury to win verdict in its favor, reports Engadget.
VirnetX has won $368.2 million in damages from Apple in the lawsuit. But the verdict has ultimately been vacated followed by an appeal in last September. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has called for a damages retrial. The retrial concludes with pronouncing Wednesday's verdict.
The plaintiff, VirnetX has initially claimed for $532 million. But the amount has been inflated to $625.6 million due to deliberate infringement on the patents-in-suit. The recent verdict has appended FaceTime infringement allegations while constructing the new claim, reports Apple Insider.
The court has found VPN on Demand feature, being used in iOS3 to iOS6, infringing VirnetX patent nos. 6,502,135 and 7,490,151. Apple has been instructed to pay $334.9 million in damages for the copyright violation.
The FaceTime version, used in iOS4 to iOS6 and OSX10.7 to OSX10.8, infringe patent no. 7,418,504 and 7,921,211. Furthermore, Apple's deliberate infringement on VirnetX IP with subsequent and current VPN on Demand, FaceTime and iMessage iterations have contributed $209.7 million hit.
The jurors have observed Apple infringing VirnetX's patent products for years. Their hard work and attention over the case have been praised by Jason Cassady, the VirnetX attorney from law firm Caldwell Cassady & Curry of Dallas.
Wednesday's verdict is the latest in a series of wins for VirnetX and thus attains familiarity for leveraging portfolio against big name tech companies. Even Microsoft has been compelled to pay $200 million in 2010 and again $23 million in 2014 in out of court settlements.
VirnetX has compelled Microsoft to pay $223 million in out of court settlements during 2010 to 2014. Now it has again appeared to become the media headlines winning a long pending lawsuit with Apple. An East Texas jury has hold Apple accused of infringing VirnetX's patent products and ordered for paying $625.6 million as damages. Intriguingly, VirnetX has no product but earns from dealing patent litigation.
Join the Conversation