Apple and VirnetX have had a (relatively) long running feud concerning patents in the past, and so far the story goes like this – VirnetX have had the upper hand in the courtroom to date, including Apple being asked to pay VirnetX $368 million in damages over a VPN patent, not to mention $625 million over a FaceTime patent infringement which Apple has duly filed for a mistrial. This time around, it looks like VirnetX would like to seek out another $190 million from Apple apart from FaceTime and iMessages ban.
Apart from the money, VirnetX would like the court to issue an injunction. This injunction, if approved and carried out, would be very, very damaging to Apple since it would see the ban of FaceTime and iMessages usage. Just about every single Apple device user must have had at least one encounter with FaceTime before, not to mention iMessages, so you can guess the repercussions that accompany such a ban if it were to come into effect.
VirnetX claims that Apple needs to shut down these features due to “lost sales and reputational harm caused by Apple’s distribution of the infringing features.” Apple would like to seek a new trial, citing that VirnetX’s lawyers did have some misrepresentations in court.
Filed in . Read more about Legal. Source: arstechnica