US Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Apple In Patent Infringement Case Against VirnetX

• Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) turned the tables in its favor by convincing a U.S. appeals court on Thursday to uphold a patent tribunal's ruling.

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office invalidating the two patents VirnetX Holding Corp (NYSE: VHC) had accused Apple of infringing, Reuters reports citing court documents.

• The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed decisions by the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board that the patents were invalid in light of earlier publications.

• The two companies have waged a 13-year court battle. An East Texas jury awarded VirnetX $502 million in 2020 after deciding that Apple violated the virtual private network (VPN) patents at issue in Thursday's decision.

• The court heard combined arguments in both cases in September, and both sides said upholding the decision to cancel the patents would also likely negate the jury award.

• On Thursday, VirnetX's board declared a special cash dividend of $1.00 per share. VirnetX proposed to pay the dividend by April 17, 2023, to shareholders of record on April 10, 2023.

• The aggregate amount of the cash payment in connection with this special dividend will be approximately $71.4 million.

• With the special cash dividend, VirnetX entered into a cooperation agreement with Bradley L. Radoff, Michael Torok, and certain of their respective affiliates, who collectively own approximately 6.6% of VirnetX's common stock.

• As part of the deal, VirnetX committed to promptly distribute to shareholders 80% of future proceeds, if any, net of related legal costs, licensing costs, and taxes, that it receives from its current litigation with Apple.

• Price Action: VHC shares traded higher by 4.96% at $1.48 premarket on the last check Friday.

• Image by Okan Caliskan from Pixabay

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This article US Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Apple In Patent Infringement Case Against VirnetX originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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