Yesterday the Apple company lost a lawsuit in the US, a jury ruling that the FaceTime system infringes a series of patents owned by an American company VirnetX. It sued Apple almost 5 years ago because of this violation, it won twice in court, but Apple managed to overturn the decision each time.
Now, those from VirnetX win for the third time, this time a smaller amount than the previous ones, of 302 million dollars, which Apple will have to pay. The process is based on the infringement of patents related to VPN networks, the Apple company using these technologies patented by other companies and bought by VirnetX without right.
The amount established by the judge today represents less than half of what had been awarded to the company VirnetX in February, when Apple was obliged to pay 625 million dollars. The lawyers of those from Cupertino managed to obtain a retrial of the case, the judge coming to the conclusion that the jurors would not have taken the decision in full knowledge of the case.
The lawsuit lost yesterday is only one of the two that a judge decided to put into action, and if he loses the second one, the Apple company could have to pay even more. The interesting part is that four of the patents used in this process were invalidated by the American authorities, so Apple will have reason to ask for a new retrial in the future.
Separately from Apple, those from VirnetX took 200 million dollars from Microsoft in 2010 and another 23 million dollars in 2014, so Apple could pay the most money in the end.
"A federal jury in Texas on Friday night ordered Apple Inc to pay more than $302 million in damages for using VirnetX Holding Corp's patented internet security technology without permission in features including its FaceTime video conferencing application. The verdict came in a new trial in Tyler, Texas that had been ordered by the judge in the case, Robert Schroeder, who last August threw out VirnetX's $625.6 million win over Apple from a previous trial because he said jurors in that case may have been confused."
