VirnetX Suing Apple For $532 Million Due To Patent Infringement

It isn’t every day that you hear me taking Apple’s side in a case but this time I might just have to.  VirnetX has just gone to trial against Apple over Apple’s use of patents that VirnetX claims to hold.  The patents in question are related to Apple’s VPN and FaceTime technologies.

VirnetX is a holding company that specializes in patents.  According to their website they currently have over 80 US and international patents with 100 pending applications.  The majority of these patents, if not all of them, are patents they purchased from other entities and are mostly technology and security related.    If you haven’t heard of them, don’t be surprised.  VirnetX may hold a lot of patents but they have not actually produced anything that anyone has heard of.  The one thing they have done, is that they have gone to court several times in order to take on the tech community and make their money through patent trolling.

VirnetX has previously taken on Microsoft, Avaya, Cisco and Apple.  The original case against Apple in 2012 was appealed is now coming back for a retrial.

As a producer of a product I understand what it is like to want to protect your assets and your intellectual property.  I don’t want other people taking my work and passing it off as their own and benefiting from it.  The difference between VirnetX and me is that I am actually putting some thing out there.  I don’t just buy up someone else’s work and then pass it off as my own in order to sue someone.  VirnetX is taking away the innovation from the market and forcing people to tiptoe around a collection of patents they are lucky enough to have acquired in order to make a quick buck.  Everybody but VirnetX suffers for it and it does nothing to help anyone.  So here’s me hoping that Apple wins this case.

Source Link: Ars Technica | Cult of Mac