Refresher: There are two parallel systems involved with patent validity.
One is the patent office itself who issued the patents and wants to nullify them saying they were overbroad and anticipated by network standards committee documents (RFCs) fleshing out end-to-end encryption. The PTAB authority has domain-level experts.
The other system is the courts, who use different standards, and non-expert lay juries including the ones attached to the infamous Eastern District of Texas who are easily swayed by lawyers in the adversarial system.
The Supreme Court has commented that it's strange to have two systems, but Congress designed it this way and only the legislative branch can try to straighten the messy system out with new law. So, it's a turf war.
Meanwhile the security standards were implemented by different companies (including Cisco, Apple, and Microsoft) in different ways. These companies rolled out actual products, but VirnetX peddled the overbroad patent claims saying they were "first".
Dr. Short may have had some nifty implementation wrinkle, but VirnetX wants folks to believe they invented end-to-end encryption, when what they do is basically implement DNS lookups to secure domains ending in .scom. This is not stuff that appears as novel in textbooks on network security, just a workman-like engineering effort subject to multiple re-invention.
To add to the insult, VirnetX thinks their one improvement idea is worth multiple hundreds of millions, or a significant percentage of sales. The iPhone utilizes literally thousands of hacks -- Apple and the rest of the industry would pay this amount only for complete bundles of thousands of patents from established cellphone technology companies like Qualcomm and ye olde Motorola. So the issue of proper "apportionment" is in flux. Adding to all that is the Supreme Court decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, which since 2014 has provided a dim view of software patents in general.
Since VirnetX conned some patent clerk to accept broad language in their issuance which may even be upheld by appeals courts, they may yet win on a technicality, but it won't be because they invented *the* way to turn an iMessage from the color green (unsecure SMS) to the color blue (a bit more secure, until backup-to-iCloud at least).
You want to talk about cons? How is it that Roland Foster could dismiss expert testimony of a highly esteemed PHD in network security - https://angelosk.github.io/cv.html - an ACM and IEEE Fellow in addition to distinguished DARPA award winner - and giving broadest reasonable interpretation latitude to prior art that in reality does not make VirnetX's claims obvious or anticipated? I am going to monitor that guy's vacations, home upgrades, and retirement activity.
All that...and Roland could not complete the mission.
Apple is a global thief, Wait until they get hit with an additional $600 Million for Virnetx.
Apple created Facetime. Virnetx is nothing more than a patent troll.
I also bet you use knockoff iPhones while calling Apple a "thief".
Apple did create Facetime. But VirnetX patented the technology that makes it possible.
At that's what the courts have been believing. I find it hard to believe, even in Eastern Texas courts, that at least 3 juries have found in favor of VirnetX if they didn't actually develop the technology Apple is using.
Software patents are bunk to begin with, because they are patents for ideas rather than implementations. Implemented ideas = code, which is already copyright protected, and I haven’t heard anyone accuse Apple of copying source code.
If a patent claim depends on a software patent that describes an idea, rather than actual source code, then the claim is bogus.
This is why software patents shouldn’t even exist.
Well, software patents do exist, and they've been upheld in courts before. Doesn't matter if one agrees or not. The case isn't about the principle of whether a software patent is valid or not- it's about whether Apple used patented concepts/technology (regardless of what APPLE thinks of the validity) or not. Several courts have upheld that VirnetX's patents are NOT invalid (key distinction- Not invalid does not automatically equal valid!). Yeah, software patents may be wishy-washy, but that's the current legal landscape. Should that change, Apple will be able to get the claims tossed. Apple is playing the long game and they are going to spend a lot of money either way, whether it's lawyers or paying VirnetX.
Steve Jobs said "Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas..."
Yes, Apple was the first to incorporate FaceTime into it's platform. However, they wilfully use VirnetX patented security software to secure it, and also to secure iMessage and VPNoD.
The CAFC vacated these PTAB judgments because Apple uses its influence in that arena to destroy patent holders who find it difficult financially to overcome the most richest company in the world with all its legal resources. But the time has now come for Apple to pay up: ~400 million as soon as the CAFC denies Apple's en banc request for re-hearing. And soon after that I expect Apple to pay VirnetX a subsequent ~600 million for patent infringement on current Apple products, and pay a $1.20 royalty going forward on all Apple internet connected products.
I have been an Apple user since 1986 - that's 33 years. But at some point I knew Steve Jobs mantra was bound to meet its destiny. And that destiny is VirnetX.
Besides the fact you have no idea what you're talking about, you use the same hyperbole as the anti-Apple media.
Sorry, but you know something is wrong with a system when someone can spend a couple of hours writing an intentionally broadly worded technology idea down on a piece of paper, send it to the patent office, and then later have that patent bought by a company which has deep pockets to go after companies which, you know, actually create products, and have that company get almost half a billion dollars for it. A few hours spent and someone gets half a billion dollars. What behaviour are we incentivizing here? Why actually do hard work and create things when you can get paid for doing next to nothing?
Yours is really a very silly post. Did you know Virnetx has been in litigation for 10 years with Apple, while Microsoft, Avaya, Mitel, and others have all signed license agreements? Microsoft paid $200 million for the rights to Virnetx's patent portfolio, and then another $25 million or so for its Skype application. Apple, on the other hand, has attempted through political and legal powers to squash Virnetx (and their paltry 20 person employee firm) instead of doing what is right.
Comments
All that...and Roland could not complete the mission.
Yours is really a very silly post. Did you know Virnetx has been in litigation for 10 years with Apple, while Microsoft, Avaya, Mitel, and others have all signed license agreements? Microsoft paid $200 million for the rights to Virnetx's patent portfolio, and then another $25 million or so for its Skype application. Apple, on the other hand, has attempted through political and legal powers to squash Virnetx (and their paltry 20 person employee firm) instead of doing what is right.