In February, the company Apple lost in the first instance a lawsuit filed by those from VirnetX, the latter company accusing those from Cupertino of infringing some patents related to the VPN system of iOS, the iMessage and FaceTime platforms being the ones in which it would have been used.
Although the $625 million in damages awarded to VirnetX was the largest awarded in a lawsuit of its kind, they were not satisfied with the outcome, and four months later filed a second lawsuit against VirnetX. to Apple, asking for another 190 million dollars based on this alleged violation of his rights.
Despite the second trial, a federal judge decided today to overturn the decision by which he awarded the amount of 625 million dollars to VirnetX, so that Apple's lawyers have for now fulfilled their mission of save those from Cupertino from paying a very large amount as compensation.
Motivating his decision, the judge in this case stated that the jurors who decided the initial amount would have been misled by some references made by the lawyers of VirnetX, so the final amount would be inconsistent with reality, and his decision would could lead to a retrial of the case in the future.
He said jurors may have been confused by more than 50 references to the earlier case, although it contained "incredibly similar" issues, and deferred improperly to the prior jury's findings when it found Apple's liable for willful infringement. "The repeated references to the prior jury verdict in the consolidated case resulted in an unfair trial," Schroeder wrote.
The disputes between the two companies started in 2012 when VirnetX demanded 532 million dollars for exactly the same reason, and considering the decision taken today, there is a chance that new retrials will take place in the following months between the two companies.
