The four-year saga of the Veeam/Veritas patent infringement suit has come to an end. And, the final result saw the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed all eight asserted patents cases.
Veeam Software is claiming victory and made a public announcement that the lawsuit, initially brought on by Symantec before the company was split in two, was “dismissed with prejudice.”
William Largent, Veeam CEO, had a lot to say about the decision. The Switzerland headquartered Veeam issued this statement from Largent:
“It is not unheard of in our industry for ‘traditional’ vendors to fear change, and for them to abuse the legal system in a vain attempt to stifle innovation and protect their legacy business. This case is a perfect example of this. Over the past four years, Veeam has stood its ground in contesting these unfounded claims. I am delighted that the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) found in our favor, and I truly believe that our case sends a clear message to the market that innovators such as Veeam will not be bullied by assumed ‘established’ vendors.”
But Veeam did not stop there. The strongly-worded statement from Largent was accompanied by another message from the company.
“Veeam has triumphed after a four-year dispute initiated by Symantec because Symantec’s legacy physical backup products could not compete with Veeam’s innovative approach to delivering availability solutions for the Always-On Enterprise. Industry giant Symantec, concerned about Veeam’s increasing success, initiated two separate lawsuits in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California – the first lawsuit filed in February, 2012, with the second filed in October, 2012 – claiming that Veeam’s products infringed several of Symantec’s data storage, restore and backup patents. With these decisions, all of the patent claims Symantec asserted against Veeam have been found either invalid by the USPTO or dropped from the lawsuits with prejudice by Symantec.”
The current day Symantec has nothing to do with this court action as this was brought on by the Veritas side of the house. Veritas became an independent company this past February. But, in 2015 Symantec would sell off Veritas to the Carlyle Group.
Veritas isn’t saying much after this result. In a published report, a Veritas spokesperson said the company would continue to defend its intellectual property.