VirnetX Holding Corp., a Nevada company, is vowing that it will seek a new trial in its patent-infringement dispute with Cisco Systems Inc. over hardware it sold to help clients establish virtual private networks. A jury in Texas found for Cisco in March, but VirnetX’s CEO sounded confident in a statement posted online that the company was correct that Cisco infringed on patents held by his company when it developed the networks.
VirnetX holds several patents and issues licenses to other businesses to use those patented technologies. In the case of Cisco, VirnetX said that the telecommunications company created routers, phones and software that infringed on devices and software with patents owned by the latter company. Cisco illegally benefited from the patented technology to improve the security of its virtual private networks, which allow secure interaction between a website and a customer or give users remote access to their company’s electronic files.
VirnetX sued Cisco and claimed $258 million in damages, but lost at trial. The company’s CEO said that a new trial could allow VirnetX to present more evidence to the jury, which he believes would help the company prevail on the merits.
The company has had success in the past defending its patent holdings in court. It settled an infringement claim against Microsoft Corp. in 2010 over the same devices for $200 million.
Patent and other intellectual property litigation can be tricky as determining whether an idea, product or invention is unique from all previous ones can be difficult to determine.
Source: Bloomberg Businessweek, “VirnetX, Reuters, DreamWorks: Intellectual Property,” Victoria Slind-Flor, April 4, 2013
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