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

Apple Inc 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 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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