VirnetX files another lawsuit against Microsoft, says Skype infringes on six patents

A company by the name of VirnetX Holding Corp has filed for a lawsuit against Microsoft claiming that the software giant’s instant messaging and internet calling service, Skype, infringes on six patents. VirnetX is no stranger to Microsoft, as they filed and won a patent lawsuit against Microsoft back in 2010.

VirnetX claims that Microsoft’s Skype in infringing upon six of their own patents. Even though Microsoft bought Skype back in October of 2011 for $8.5 billion dollars, that acquisition was not part of the earlier license deal Microsoft had made with VirnetX back in 2010.

In 2010, VirnetX filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for patents related to private networks and won a $200 million settlement from Microsoft. “Although Microsoft previously signed a patent license with VirnetX, we believe they are infringing our patents in ways that are outside the scope of the original license. We look forward to quickly resolving this matter,” VirnetX CEO Kendall Larsen stated in an official statement.

VirnetX is no stranger to patent lawsuits, as they have won a $368 million dollar case against Apple over the same patents back in November of 2012. VirnetX lost the same patent lawsuit against Cisco in March of last year. VirnetX is dependent upon patent licensing for its income. In fact, VirnetX has reported a revenue of $412,000.00 just last year.

“Every successful technology company sees patent suits from time to time. We’re confident in our handling of intellectual property and look forward to addressing these claims,” Microsoft stated. Doesn’t seem like Microsoft is too concerned about the validity of the claims, seeing as how Microsoft has dealt with these types of issues a few times.