A California jury has awarded VirnetX Holding Corp. a US$105.75 million judgment in a patent infringement case against Microsoft. The secure real-time communications and collaboration technology company received the judgment after the jury found that two VirnetX patents dealing with secure communications were willfully infringed upon by Microsoft. Injunctive relief remains undecided, and VirnetX is ready to defend its rights should Microsoft appeal. In a statement, VirnetX president and CEO Kendall Larsen said: “Receiving a nine-figure award is tremendous and verifies our belief that our patents are foundational and important. We look forward to the appeals process as further validation of our patents.” In the case, the patents determined to be infringed upon were entitled “Agile Network Protocol for Secure Communications with Assured System Availability” and “Method for Establishing Secure Communication Link Between Computers of Virtual Private Network.”
The SCO Group, a UNIX software technology vendor, has announced it has secured U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval and funding for US$2 million in post-petition financing from a group of private lenders and in the form of a secured super-priority credit facility. Proceeds will be used to fund SCO’s operating and administrative expenses, as well as costs to pursue litigation against IBM and Novell, among others. The financing will also enable SCO to proceed with its asset sales and support for its UNIX customer base; it is also intended for the preservation of the value of the company’s business. In a statement, Ken Nielsen, SCO’s CFO, said, “The financing is intended to enable SCO to continue to sell and support its products while servicing the needs of our customers and partners on a worldwide basis through the bankruptcy period.”
CA has acquired privately held 3tera, a cloud-computing solution provider, for an undisclosed amount. With this acquisition, CA continues to expand its portfolio of solutions to manage cloud computing as part of an integrated information technology management program. 3tera’s AppLogic offers a solution to rapidly deploy new and existing applications to private and public clouds using a GUI. In addition to AppLogic, 3tera provides other services and technologies. “3tera technology is a powerful addition to the total solution CA provides…from the maintenance to the cloud,” said Chris O’Malley, executive vice president of CA’s Cloud Products and Solutions Business Line, in a statement.
IBM has announced its acquisition of Initiate Systems, a privately held software company with a focus on data integrity and master data management technologies—particularly in the healthcare and government industries. IBM said this acquisition will better equip it to help clients draw on data from hospitals, doctors’ offices and payers to a create a single, shareable view of millions of individual patient records. Additionally, Initiate will also enhance IBM’s ability to enable governments to access information from multiple systems and agencies to provide better services to citizens. In a statement, IBM said Initiate’s technologies and operations will be integrated into its Information Management business, and Initiate’s employees will join IBM.
