VirnetX hires Microsoft antagonist to lead patent fight

VirnetX, the Scotts Valley supplier of tools for securing real-time communications over the Internet, has hired a Texas-based law firm with a track record of fighting Microsoft in court to represent it in its current suit against the software giant.

McKool Smith will now lead VirnetX’s litigation effort in a suit brought against Microsoft in February 2007 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, claiming that Microsoft has infringed on three of its patents. The Texas-based ffirm recently announced a $200 million patent infringement verdict in favor of its client, Toronto-based i4i against Microsoft, according to a release VirnetX distributed Thursday.

Last year, McKool Smith successfully represented Anascape, an east Texas gaming company, which was awarded $21 million in a suit it brought against Nintendo for infringing on a patent while designing controllers for its popular Wii and GameCube systems. A related action against Microsoft was settled out of court. The terms of that settlement were kept confidential.

McKool Smith has agreed to represent Virnetx for a fixed fee of $3 million and a contingency fee of 8 percent of any judgement award.

“We are extremely pleased to have McKool Smith take over our patent infringement suit against Microsoft,” said VirnetX CEO Kendall Larsen in a statement.

“In light of their recent win against the same attorneys and opponent we are facing, we think the McKool Smith team is an outstanding choice to lead us into the trial phase of our litigation with Microsoft. They are widely considered to be one of the best patent litigation firms in the country and we believe that they will be instrumental in the successful resolution of this litigation.

“We also believe that our new legal fee arrangement, a combination of flat fee and contingency, will help us better meet our cash flow needs and reduce our burn rate as we gear up for trial.”

Bay Area News Group blog editor (1223 Posts)