The U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington has dismissed VirnetX's patent claims against Apple's FaceTime technology, and along with it their claim to $368 million in royalties. Apple has been fighting against against this patent holding company for over two years.
Though Apple has admitted some infringement, VirnetX's damage claims and jury instructions on how to determine damages were inaccurate enough to grant Apple the appeal. The patents in question had to do with virtual private networks, and applied equally to Mac as well as iPhone.
Patents are messy business, and long, drawn-out affairs like this are not uncommon. It's good to see Apple come out on top this time, but we surely aren't far from another patent battle in the future.
Source: Re/code
