Apple loses patent suit against VirnetX again

Apple has lost another lawsuit against VirnetX over patent infringement. The latter believes that Apple is infringing its patents with the FaceTime video service. A US judge ordered damages of $302.4 million.

This is reported by Reuters news agency, among others. A federal judge in the US state of Texas ruled that Apple has infringed two VirnetX patents with its FaceTime video calling technology. As a result, Apple has to pay compensation of the equivalent of 269 million euros.

There will be a separate lawsuit to determine whether Apple has knowingly infringed VirnetX’s patents. As a result, the compensation is not yet fixed and may be higher or lower. As a result, the legal battle between Apple and VirnetX will continue for some time to come. The patents VirnetX uses in the lawsuits describe techniques for setting up secure communications and networks.

It is not VirnetX’s first lawsuit against Apple. For example, Apple was previously ordered to pay compensation of approximately 560 million euros, but this amount was declared invalid on appeal. According to the judge, it was unfair that two VirnetX lawsuits were combined into a single case, which means that they both have to be redone separately from each other; so one of them is the FaceTime lawsuit. In another case, VirnetX is accusing Apple of violating patents in its VPN On Demand service and iMessage.

In 2012, VirnetX also filed a lawsuit against Apple, in which the judge ordered damages of $368 million, plus one percent of the sales of iPhones and iPads. This ruling was reversed on appeal.