VirnetX Beats Apple Again in Decade-Old Patent Lawsuit

VirnetX Holding (VHC +14.20%) has been victorious yet again in its patent infringement case against Apple (AAPL +1.33%), which has been dragging through the courts for a decade.

VirnetX announced today that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has ruled that Apple is not entitled to relief from having to pay VirnetX almost $440 million for infringing on its patents related to Apple’s VPN-on-demand feature.

Image source: Apple.

The case stems from a 2010 case in which the internet security specialist accused Apple of infringing on its patents relating to secure networks – called virtual private networks (VPNs) – and secure communications links in Apple’s FaceTime videoconferencing app.

Although VirtnetX has been referred to as a patent troll with its contention that it owns most of the crucial patents related to security across the internet, it has gone after most of the top tech stocks, including Apple, Cisco, and Microsoft, to enforce them, and has been mostly successful.

Apple appealed its loss all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and while it has won minor victories along the way, such as rulings that FaceTime doesn’t infringe on the patents, the larger battles have fallen VirnetX’s way, and Apple may be running out of ways to avoid paying the judgment.

The latest decision derives from Apple’s appeal of a federal court’s ruling that its VPN-on-demand feature, which allows you to configure a secure connection anonymously to keep your data safe, violated two of VirnetX’s patents.

VirnetX was awarded a total of $439.7 million in damages.