Despite VirnetX’s mixed success with their past patent litigations, their most recent $626 million win over Apple was definitely their biggest feat yet. After losing to Cisco last year and winning against Microsoft in 2010, VirnetX decided that Apple was the most important target for 2016. Originally, VirnetX had won the case in 2012, accusing Apple of $368 million in damages. Since then, Apple had appealed the case and won on a technicality; the jury saw no direct causation between Apple’s infringing software and their sales of iPads and other devices that used said software.
However, the appeal ended up hurting Apple in the long run. A new jury found Apple guilty of $626 million in damages, more than VirnetX initially demanded, because it “willfully violated their patents”. After their win, VirnetX’s shares doubled before the market opened.
The jury had determined that Apple first infringed on VirnetX’s patent Nos. 7,490,151 and 6,502,135, leading to damages of $335 million. After that ruling, the jury determined that Apple’s FaceTime feature, used from iOS 4 to iOS 6 and from OS X 10.7 to OS X 10.8 i, violated VirnetX’s patent Nos 7,921,211 and 7,418,504. This lead to another $291 million in damages owed by Apple to VirnetX. Apple’s VPN on Demand features also played into infringements on parts of all four patents.
As a company that does not sell any physical product, VirnetX thrives through their ownership of patents. The modern world is becoming increasingly reliant on technologies, and patents are at the core of this development. VirnetX is right where they should be in the technological world.
Daniel, this is a really good post about the case at hand. It's very obvious that you did your research and are confident discussing this case in all aspect. However, maybe you could discuss more of Apple's side of the case if you ever want to delve further?
ReplyDeleteBy saying "VirnetX is right where they should be in the technological world." you seem to be painting a good picture of them. In my opinion it seems like a patent troll such as this doesn't actually offer much to society. If anything it seems like they're stifling innovation.
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job explaining what VirnetX is, and how it is capable of doing what it does. Maybe in the future you could also discuss other patent trolls that have done similar things and how they fare.
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
ReplyDeleteThis a very good synopsis of this battle between Apple and VirtenX. I like how you gave a clear timeline of events and the specifics of what happened. At the end, it seems like you were in favor of what VirnetX is doing. Do you think patent trolls should be allowed to make money off of companies that are trying to actually develop products that better our world?
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post. You really gave a lot of great information and a thorough analysis of what is going in this case. However, like Chase, I think that your statement about VirnetX being right where they should be is arguable. I guess purely from a profit perspective they are in a great position with almost no overhead and a huge potential upside. Still, in terms of technology as a whole, I think that they are actually more of a hindrance than anything positive.
Hi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I really enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed learning from this post that Virnetx lost to Cisco last year, but won the case with Microsoft in 2010. In addition, I also do think it's crazy how the stock almost tripled after this court ordering. To make this post even better, I recommend talking about the specific claims that were violated.
Once again great post!
Hey,
ReplyDeleteNice job on the post. I thought the level of detail in this was a great summary of the case as a whole and the surrounding background. You did a great job of including the necessary details without overwhelming the reader with tech descriptions. Only recommendation would be to cite where you got the information!