A couple of days ago, a court ruled against Apple in a patent infringement lawsuit, in which the company suing Apple, VirnetX, won. The court ordered Apple to pay the company an eye-watering $625 million in damages, a number that was actually more than what VirnetX was asking for in the first place.
Unsurprisingly Apple took issue with the ruling, and has since filed for a mistrial. According to a report from the Texas Lawyer, Apple claims that VirnetX’s attorney made “arguments outside the evidence and blatantly misrepresented the testimony of Apple’s witnesses.” Whether or not Apple filing for a mistrial will be successful remains to be seen, but one of the challenges the company faces is the location of the trial.
The case is currently filed in Tyler, Texas which is in the state’s Eastern district. This is notable because it so happens that many patent lawsuits which have taken place in the district have typically gone in favor of the patent holder. Of course the law is the law, but VirnetX is typically referred to as a patent troll, in which their main course of business is to go after companies with vague patents in an attempt to sue them (or get a settlement) for huge amounts of money.
VirnetX has successfully sued and settled with the likes of Apple in the past, along with other tech companies such as Microsoft. In any case $625 million is a lot of money, not to mention the precedent it would set for future similar lawsuits, so we guess we’ll just have to wait and see how this one plays out.