Apple’s bid for rehearing in VirnetX patent case rejected by US Court of Appeals

Today brings another development as part of the never-ending patent battle between Apple and VirnetX. Reuters reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected Apple’s bid for a rehearing in the patent case.

In a November ruling, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit voided a jury’s calculation that Apple should pay $503 million in damages for infringing VirnetX patents. That part of the ruling was a victory for Apple, but it wasn’t all good news.

In a partial victory for VirnetX, the Federal Circuit left in place a jury’s decision that Apple did infringe on two VirnetX patents for security communications technology. Apple requested that the judges sitting on the court reconsider this part of the ruling, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied that request today.

Apple and VirnetX are both still awaiting details on the recalculation of the damages in the first part of this lawsuit. The Texas judge in the case must decide whether to hold a new damages-only trial or to recalculate damages without holding one. VirnetX has argued that its damages are fair based on its belief that Apple sold over 400 million devices that infringed on the patent.

This years-long patent battle between VirnetX and Apple has been ongoing since 2010 through multiple different cases. The case in question today originally went to trial in 2018, and is just one of several lawsuits VirnetX has brought against Apple over alleged patent infringement.

Apple has appealed nearly every ruling made in the VirnetX case, arguing that VirnetX continuously “moves the boundary, asking for more and more and more.”