Veeam Software has announced that the first patent litigation that Symantec brought against Veeam in February of 2012 has been dismissed.
Last month, Symantec dismissed its Federal Circuit appeal of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to cancel all asserted claims of the final remaining patent asserted by Symantec in that district court action, US Patent Number 7 093 086.
When it first sued Veeam, Symantec asserted that Veeam’s products infringed various claims from four Symantec patents: US Patent Numbers 7 093 086, 6 931 558, 7 191 299, and 7 254 682.
Over the next three years, Symantec either dismissed the asserted claims of the patents with prejudice in the district court action or obtained rulings from the USPTO that the asserted patent claims were invalid in the Inter Partes Review proceedings initiated by Veeam, or both.
“This is a big victory for Veeam. I am pleased with the USPTO rulings. This case shows that Veeam will not back down in the face of threats, even when those threats are made by a large company like Symantec,” says Ratmir Timashev, CEO of Veeam.
In October 2012, Symantec filed a second patent infringement case against Veeam, asserting that Veeam’s products infringed claims from four additional patents: US Patent Number 7 024 527, 8 117 168, 7 831 861, and 7 480 822.
In October 2013, Veeam filed Inter Partes Review proceedings against these four patents to invalidate the asserted claims, and in April 2014, the USPTO determined that Veeam established a reasonable likelihood of proving that those asserted claims are invalid.
The USPTO is expected to issue final decisions about the validity of the asserted patent claims in those four proceedings in April 2015. In the meantime, Symantec joined Veeam’s motion to stay the district court proceedings pending the outcome of the USPTO’s April decision, and the district court stayed the case.
