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Patent Troll VirnetX Wants To Ban FaceTime and iMessage, Increase Damages Award By $190M (9to5mac.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year, patent troll VirnetX won a court battle with Apple to the tune of $625 million. Now, the company wants to increase the damages award by $190 million. Law360 reports: "At a post-trial hearing Wednesday, Texas technology company VirnetX argued that although an injunction blocking Apple's popular video chatting and messaging features, along with a virtual private network on demand feature, may seem like a harsh remedy, it is necessary because of the irreparable harm Apple's infringement caused the company. VirnetX also asked the court to increase the jury's damages award by at least $190 million, arguing that Apple has been the 'poster child' for unreasonable litigation tactics." VirnetX also wants the court to block FaceTime and iMessage entirely. "Meanwhile, Apple argued that in light of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decisions rejecting the four patents-in-suit, an injunction would be inappropriate, as would any ongoing royalty based on FaceTime, iMessage and virtual private network on demand features. The tech giant also sought a mistrial based on a purportedly inappropriate argument to the jury and argued that the company is entitled to a judgment of non infringement, despite the jury verdict, based on VirnetX's allegedly insufficient evidence," reports Law360.
The patents were bought from SAIC, so that's not relevant to this case.
To rephrase that for the unacquainted:
The patents were bought from the DIA by a CIA patent troll front.
SAIC is one of the top 10 defense contractors. You remember Q from James Bond? His American counterpart is an employee of SAIC. This is all about encryption and decentralized chat: who gets to use them, and who does not get to use them. You do not get to use them. If you think this is just about patent trolling, you don't know the players.
SAIC are pretty scummy. They found out at one point that they were using some of our GPL'd software in a proprietary product. We said "yeah, mistakes happen, make a small payment (a few $K) to support an open-source initiative and we'll carve out a license exemption for your use case, no big deal". They then spent probably about ten times as much with lawyers arguing that their interpretation of the GPL meant they could go ahead and use it without open-sourcing anything and without needing a license exemption. In the end we just dropped the matter, it wasn't worth the hassle.
They don't want to replace it.
VirnetX works for the intelligence community. They don't like Apple's end-to-end encryption because it makes life harder for them.
Originally, this patent dispute arose over encryption and decentralization: iChat/FaceTime, like Skype. made direct connections between computers, which cut out the middleman relay server which also cut out an easy logging point. Microsoft bought Skype and immediately eliminated direct connections; Apple continued to make direct connections until VirnetX sued them under a patent about direct connections. Now FaceTime calls are routed through an Apple server, which means that they can be more easily logged... but Apple flipped the intelligence community the middle finger by encrypting all the calls and by encrypting iMessage (at least the iMessage messages that aren't SMS).
VirnetX now wants to shut down FaceTime and iMessage in retaliation. They're essentially using patents as an excuse to get an injunction against Apple for encrypting chat by default. The only replacement VirentX and its masters might want would be unencrypted chat and easily logged communications.
Interestingly, VirnetX has little market cap -- $265M. If they could, I'm sure Apple would love to buy the company and all its patents in a very hostile takeover. That will never be allowed to happen, because VirnetX is a tool for people who won't let that happen.