Apple files another appeal against $440m VirnetX award
Apple has filed another appeal against a patent infringement verdict which ordered the smartphone maker to pay IP licensing company, VirnetX, $440 million.
In the document, filed on January 24, Apple claimed it should not have to pay damages as it redesigned prior versions of its FaceTime and iMessage features after VirnetX accused them of infringing four of its patents.
The appeal was filed in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
VirnetX has filed six different lawsuits against Apple in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas since 2010.
Apple claimed VirnetX misled the court and the jury after Apple redesigned its features.
In its appeal, it said: “VirnetX then pivoted to claim construction and infringement theories that are unsupported by, and indeed inconsistent with, the patents and the evidence.”
The appeal is the most recent development in Apple’s attempt to have the costly award dismissed.
In January 18, the Federal Circuit rejected Apple’s request to overturn the $440 million judgment in favour of VirnetX.
Apple was ordered to pay the damages after a jury found the technology company liable for infringement of VirnetX’s patents (US numbers 6,502,135; 7,490,151; 7,418,504; and 7,921,211).
The patents cover an “agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability”, “establishment of a secure communication link based on a domain name service” and “agile network protocol for secure communications using secure domain names”.
The jury initially awarded damages of $302 million, which included costs and fees, but this was later upgraded to $440 million after Apple was found to have wilfully infringed the patents.
In its latest appeal, Apple accused the district court of preventing it “from fairly presenting its defences to the jury”.
Apple said the district court “erroneously invoked issue preclusion to forbid Apple from presenting invalidity issues never previously adjudicated”.
An issue preclusion prevents a party from re-litigating an issue once it has already been decided in a previous case.
Apple argued that the issues it presented had not previously been litigated, so it should have been allowed to argue its case.
Additionally, Apple claimed that in separate proceedings it had brought with Cisco and others against VirnetX in 2011, the US Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the “asserted claims of every patent-in-suit” are unpatentable.
Although VirnetX has appealed against that ruling by the USPTO, Apple’s appeal said that if the unpatentability of the claims is affirmed, the $440 million judgment should be vacated.
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