In another chapter of the legal battle between Apple and VirnetX, a jury in Texas decided today in a 90-minute session that Apple will be required to pay an additional $502.8 million for infringing patents of the security software company VirtneX.
As reported by Bloomberg, the jury had to decide how much Apple owes VirnetX in royalties for VPN on Demand. VirnetX accuses Apple of infringing on its VPN patents on iOS, which offers features to let users connect to virtual private networks on iPhone and iPad.
VirnetX argued that Apple should pay $700 million for the infractions, but Apple tried to negotiate on $113 million claiming that the royalty rate should not be more than 19 cents per unit. The jury’s final decision determined that Apple would have to pay 84 cents per unit.
An Apple spokesman said he was disappointed with the result.
We thank the jury for their time and appreciate their consideration but are disappointed with the verdict and plan to appeal. This case has been going on for over a decade, with patents that are unrelated to the core operations of our products and have been found to be invalid by the patent office. Cases like this only serve to stifle innovation and harm consumers.
Earlier this year, Apple paid $440 million to VirnetX in another legal dispute over communications security technologies. This dispute began in 2010, and it was only ended in March of this year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected another appeal from Apple.
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