Federal Jury Finds Apple’s FaceTime Guilty of Patent Infringement to the Tune of $368 Million

By: Ali Raza  |   November 9th, 2012   |   Apple, Business, News

Apple, who many feel have been villainous for suing their primary rival Samsung for patent infringements, have gotten a taste of its own medicine. The global tech icon was found to be guilty in the court of law for infringing four VirnetX copyrights for its famous FaceTime app.

 

The federal jury ordered Apple to pay VirnetX $368 million for violating the applicable copyrights. As a result of this verdict, VirnetX’s share price also saw a boost of 23 percent, making the coup an overall success for the company. As Chief Executive Officer of VirnetX, Kendall Larsen had the following to say, “This victory further establishes the importance of our patent portfolio.”

 

VirnetX’s original request was for $700 million, however the firm was likely quite happy to settle at $368 million. Moreover, this was not the first time that VirnetX has sued a big firm, as back in 2010 the company sought Microsoft for breaching copyrights. VirnetX won that case as well, receiving $200 million in settlement.

 

On the other hand, Apple did not agree with this claim, as according to them they had used a different technology to develop the FaceTime app. As Apple’s lawyer for this case, Danny Williams told the jury, “Apple does not owe money to VirnetX. VirnetX is not entitled to money for things they did not invent. The VirnetX technology, if used, is a small part of very large, complex products.”

 

In general what one can take from this entire narrative is that no company is safe from patent related suits particularly as Intellectual Property becomes a much more valuable asset class for technology companies.

 

Source: Tech Vibes