Apple loses Fed Circuit appeal over VirnetX VPN patents
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied a request by Apple to reverse part of a November 2019 ruling that found Apple iPhones had infringed VirnetX’s patents, used in virtual private networks (VPN).
This is the latest in a series of legal proceedings, lasting over ten years, in which both companies have contested the ownership of patents related to Apple’s FaceTime and iMessage applications. VirnetX, an internet security software and technology company, has sought millions of dollars in royalties from the Cupertino-based tech giant.
The November ruling overturned the decision that Apple should pay over $500 million for the patent infringement. Apple had argued that this figure was excessive.
However, it left in place a previous decision from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas that some versions of FaceTime used on older versions of iPhone had indeed infringed two VirnetX patents.
The appeals court’s decision on Monday, 10 February, upheld aspects of the November decision, rejecting Apple’s argument that the security measures included in the VPN system were not the same as those outlined in the VirnetX patent.
“The record contains substantial evidence that the redesigned version of ‘VPN on Demand’ performs every step of the methods claimed in the asserted claims of the ’135 patent,” said the ruling.
“We affirm the district court’s judgments that Apple is precluded from making certain invalidity arguments and that Apple infringed the ’135 and ’151 patents. We reverse the district court’s judgment that Apple infringed the ’504 and ’211 patents. We remand the case for proceedings on damages consistent with this opinion.”
VirnetX owns US Patent Nos. 6,502,135, 7,418,504, 7,490,151, and 7,921,211, “related to, and claim improvements over, VirnetX’s US Patent No. 7,010,604”, said the court.
“The ’604 patent describes virtual private network (VPN) techniques for securely and privately transmitting communications over public networks. In particular, it describes a method in which a data packet is sent through a randomised series of servers before reaching its final destination,” which enables the users’ identity to be obscured, thus enhancing privacy, the court explained.
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