Fresh off of a $368 million patent lawsuit victory over Apple regarding virtual private networking (VPN) connectivity used in Apple's FaceTime video calling feature, VirnetX has filed a new lawsuit targeting all of Apple's latest iOS devices and Macs, which were not included in the original lawsuit. The new lawsuit was unearthed by Patently Apple earlier this week, but VirnetX did not announce it until today.
The complaint includes allegations of willful patent infringement regarding four patents owned by VirnetX, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,502,135, 7,418,504, 7,921,211 and 7,490,151. In its complaint, VirnetX seeks both damages and injunctive relief. The accused products include the iPhone 5, iPod Touch 5th Generation, iPad 4th Generation, iPad mini, and the latest Macintosh computers. Due to their release dates, these products were not included in the previous lawsuit that concluded with a Jury verdict on November 6, 2012.
Apple is expected to appeal the ruling in the original case, and will of course fight the inclusion of its new products in a similar judgment.
Top Rated Comments
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Regardless of Apple, winning or losing, software patents suckass.
From what I've read, VirnetX is not a patent troll but they do seem to have patents that should not have been granted in the first place.
Software patents are a real mess, to say the least.
Oh that's right. It's against Apple so it's bad now right?
No - because algorithms are not novel, 40 people could simultaneously solve the same problem the same way and giving 1 of them permission to sue the other 39 is just plain stupid.
It also means that it is impossible for anyone to actually write software without being a multi-millionaire.
I mean - how on earth can I possibly determine if my app is legal or not, if people might have patented some obvious way of doing something ?
SAIC has been shedding employees and entire departments this year as money from the No Such Agency's wild spending spree for eavesdropping tech has been dialed back. I am sure these are some of those caught in that downsizing and why not look to capitalize in a big way on this?
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Just a fine point. Patents are not "won" as in a competition. They are granted based on the uniqueness of a product or procedure.