VirnetX Brings VPN Patent Battle to Apple, Cisco

By Geoff Duncan August 16, 2010

Image used with permission by copyright holder

After winning a $200 million patent infringement settlement from Microsoft, VPN technology company is expanding its legal fusillade to include other technology giants: the company has filed suit in the patent holder-friendly Eastern Texas U.S. District Court against a series of companies for infringing on its VPN patents. The named defendants in the suit are Apple, Cisco, NEC, and Aastra.

The suit alleges the companies infringe on five VirnetX patents, and seeks unspecified injunctive relief and damages. The suit claims Apple mobile devices (the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) infringe on at least one of the patents (7,490,151) having to do with setting up secure communications using DNS. The claims against Aastra, NEC, and Cisco focus on VoIP products—including VoIP phones.

VirnetX acquired the patents in question when it acquired Science Applications International back in 2006. Science Applications mainly operated as a defense contractor. Shortly after the acquisition, VirnetX sued Microsoft for infringing on two of the company’s patents in Microsoft Office Communicator and Windows Meeting Space; VirnetX won the trial in March of this year and expanded the litigation to include Windows 7 before Microsoft agreed to a settlement.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Computing

This new Google Sheets feature is going to save so much time

Google Sheets is open in the Safari browser on a MacBook Air.

After Google I/O 2024, Google continues to roll out features that bolster its productivity apps -- this time, specifically with Google Sheets. As picked up by The Verge, Google has announced a much simpler way to generate easily formatted tables in the Sheets app. This new Sheets feature has been around for many years in Excel and has recently reached Google. Better late than never.

The option is called Convert to table, and you can use it by opening a Sheets document and clicking Format > Convert to table when the option reaches you later this month or early next. With this new option, Google aims for a more Excel-type experience by adding filters for each column. The rows also get visual separators, saving you time by not having to select the rows manually to turn them gray. The Convert to table feature also brings filters and column types and makes the drop-down menu creation easier.

Computing

One of Lenovo’s most popular laptops is 40% off right now

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 laptop, opened with a colorful wallpaper on the screen.

Lenovo often has some of the best laptop deals around, and that’s no different today. Currently you can buy the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 laptop for $2,135, and it’s packed with great hardware. According to Lenovo, it usually costs $3,559 so you’re saving 40% here. Lenovo’s estimated value system can be a little optimistic so the actual original price may be different, but what we do know is that the new low price is fantastic for these specs. Here’s what to expect from the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11.

Why you should buy the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 is well-designed for business use. It has a 13th-generation Intel Core i7-1365U processor with a huge 32GB of memory so it’s perfect for extensive multitasking. There’s also 1TB of SSD storage which is great for storing your many files without needing to rely on cloud storage.

Computing

Usually $1,500, this HP gaming PC with an RTX 4070 is $800 today

The HP Omen 40L sitting on a coffee table.

While gaming laptops tend to get all the love and attention these days, that doesn't mean that the gaming desktop market hasn't also been booming quite significantly. It used to be that you had to build your PC from scratch or buy from a boutique seller, but now even the big brands have gotten into the pre-built gaming PC market. One great example is the Omen 40L gaming desktop from HP, with this entry-level configuration going for just $800 rather than the usual $1,500, which amounts to a whopping $700 discount.

Why you should buy the OMEN 40L Gaming Desktop
The Omen 40L has a lot of configurations to pick from, and while they aren't all a great deal, this one starts on an excellent foundation. At the heart of the build is an RTX 4060, an excellent 1080p GPU that should handle most modern games just fine with high graphical fidelity and above 100 frames per second. That said, you can do quite a few upgrades in the Customizer, and probably one of the better options would be the RTX 4060 Ti for an extra $160, although if you're willing to spend all of the discount, you could also potentially go for an RTX 4080 for $990.