A federal jury concluded last Friday that Apple's FaceTime application / functionality that allows calls and video calls between users of the company and both mobile and desktop devices, infringes patents that are owned by the VirnetX company. For this reason, The Cupertino company must indemnify this company with an amount of 302 million dollarsIt is for damages caused.
According to the Reuters news agency, Judge Robert Schroeder, who presided over the case in the Federal District Court of Tyler, Texas, has been in charge of issuing this sentence, which, however, has its roots in a litigation that began between both companies back in 2010.
Apple loses the battle against VirnetX, once again
The legal battle between the companies Apple and VirnetX dates back to 2010, when Apple and other companies were accused of violating five patents related to virtual private networks or VPNs.
The following year, in 2011, VirnetX lowered its targets in court by limiting the charge to the infringement of a single patent on VPN by the iPhone 4S, Apple's device that was released that year.
In 2012 Apple was sentenced to pay 368 million dollars when a jury found the company guilty of infringing said VirnetX patent however, the ruling was overturned a couple of years later, in 2014, by the United States Court of Appeals after this court considered that the verdict had been "tainted" based on the erroneous instructions that the jury of the case had received.
Thus, in February of last year a new trial combining two patent claims by VirnetX against Apple, which was sentenced to pay 625,6 million dollars. But history was about to repeat itself.
The joy of VirnetX did not last long. About two months ago, District Judge Robert Schroeder of Tyler, Texas, described as "unfair" that the two VirnetX lawsuits had been included in the same process. According to the magistrate, once again the jury could have been "influenced" or "contaminated" due to the fact that during the trial there were repeated references to previous cases that could cause confusion in the jury, leading to an unfair trial. Under these arguments, the judge annulled the previous sentence and established that two new judicial processes should be held.
From VirnetX, the CEO of the company Kendall Larsen, expressed the disappointment of the company at Schroeder's decision, but they complied with what happened and pointed out that the company was already preparing for the next battle:
"We are disappointed," VirnetX CEO Kendall Larsen said in a statement Monday. "We are reviewing all of our options and will follow the direction of the court as we begin preparing these new trials."
The result of the decision of Judge Robert Schroeder (the holding of two new trials), has ended, in part, with this decision by which Apple must indemnify VirnetX with the amount of 302,4 million dollars. But the story has not yet come to an end as there is still a second trial, also for patent infringement on the use of IP, which could lead to a new conviction against Apple.
Victory after victory
This VirnetX victory adds to one already long string of victories against Apple (although all of them canceled, as we have already seen) and against other companies in the technology sector.
In 2010, the company settled out of court a patent infringement dispute it had filed against Microsoft. In this case, the company founded by Bill Gates agreed to the payment of 200 million dollars.
Again in 2014, VirnetX managed to maintain the right to its patents in a case against the popular instant messaging service (now also in the hands of Microsoft) Skype, for which it received another 23 million dollars from it.