Apple has just won a long-running legal battle with the company VirnetX achieve victory; A company that is often referred to as a Patent troll He is known as a patent extortionist and has entered into a dispute with Apple over several different issues in the last 13 years.
The story of the patent troll company’s complaint VirnetX From Apple
Patent extortion companies usually refer to entities that sue other companies by possessing the intellectual property rights of various technologies and inventions in order to earn money or attract media attention. Most of these companies have had no role in the registration of patents and by buying other bankrupt institutions, they obtain their various royalties. VirnetX is one such case that has sued Apple over several patent infringements in recent years and has tried to get heavy compensations from the Cupertinos.
For example, in 2012, a court in East Texas ordered Apple to pay $368 million in fines for violating the intellectual property of network-related technologies. Of course, Apple, having a powerful team of lawyers, was never under the burden of paying such an exorbitant compensation, and after filing several requests for inspection and reconsideration of the case, it was finally able to take it to the United States Supreme Court in 2020. Of course, the Supreme Court also voted in favor of VirnetX and Apple was finally forced to pay 454 million dollars to this patent troll.
In 2016, a similar lawsuit was filed by VirnetX against Apple in Texas, accusing the company of infringing patents for services such as FaceTime and iMessage. The judge also sentenced Apple to pay a fine of $302.4 million. Later, this amount increased to 440 million dollars due to various reasons. Apple tried to appeal the ruling, but was denied by a federal court.
Not satisfied with the millions of dollars in compensation received, the patent troll sued Apple again in 2018, alleging that FaceTime, VPN, and iMessage services infringed on his patents. This time, the Texas court determined a fine of 502 million dollars; But Apple appealed the verdict and took it to the federal court. Also last year, the US Patent and Trademark Office invalidated VirnetX’s patents in this case. This issue caused the Court of Appeal to declare that the patents mentioned in this complaint cannot be cited and the previous fine will be canceled. Now Apple and the famous patent troll have to wait for the announcement of the new final decision from the Texas state court.
