Patent troll VirnetX loses $625m court case against Apple

Retrial in the offing for Apple over 'intellectual property company' VirnetX's FaceTime claim

Apple has avoided a $625m intellectual property infringement ruling in favour of intellectual property specialist VirnetX after a judge ruled that its previous trial had been unfair.

The case between Apple and Texas-based 'patent troll' VirnetX relates to technology used in Apple's FaceTime service found in several versions of the iOS and OS X operating systems, and versions of iMessage and the company's virtual-private-networking On Demand service.

The two companies have been in dispute for some time, with initial damages of $368m awarded to VirnetX in 2012 in one of Texas's notoriously patent-troll-friendly courts. This was then almost doubled to $625.6m earlier this year after two separate cases were merged into one.

However, in the latest twist a federal judge has ruled that this award was invalid, as it was unfair to Apple to have the two patent cases combined and caused confusion among the jurors involved in the case.

"The repeated references to the prior jury verdict in the consolidated case resulted in an unfair trial," wrote US district judge Robert Schroeder in Tyler, Texas, as reported by Reuters.

The judge ordered that the two cases be split and heard again. Jury selection for the first is set for 26 September, while the second will be held after the first has been finalised.

Kendall Larsen, VirnetX CEO and president, said that the company is (not surprisingly) disappointed by the decision and is deciding on its next course of action.

"We are reviewing all our options and will follow the court's direction as we start preparing for these retrials. We are confident that we have the resources required for these retrials. We trust that the jury will again make the right decision in the retrials," he said.

Apple had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication when contacted by Computing.