Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, March 31 (Xinhua) Apple, which has been involved in a patent dispute with VirnetX for more than a decade, won an appeal today that may save it from having to pay a patent infringement fee of $502.8 million to VirnetX. (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 3.464 billion yuan)

On Thursday, a federal appeals court confirmed the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, invalidating two patents filed by VirnetX against Apple. That means Apple may not have to pay VirnetX $502.8 million in patent infringement damages.

VirnetX is a patent-holding company that does not provide actual products or services and generates revenue by suing technology companies that infringe its patents. The patent dispute between VirnetX and Apple has been going on for more than a decade. In 2020, the court ordered Apple to pay $503 million to VirnetX because the VPN on demand function of Apple's iPhone infringed VirnetX's VPN patents, which have now been declared invalid.

Apple appealed after it was ordered to pay compensation, and the two sides argued in September last year. Jeff Lamken, a lawyer for VirnetX, said at the time that VirnetX would be "in big trouble" if the court finally upheld the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He said he didn't think VirnetX would have an "enforceable verdict." So this could be a major victory for Apple.

As the patent is declared invalid, VirnetX and Apple will again debate Apple's appeal to determine whether Apple needs to pay compensation. For now, it looks like the $502.8 million verdict will be reversed.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, Apple has been forced to pay $440 million to VirnetX because FaceTime and iMessage features infringe VirnetX's communications security patents.

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