Veeam Said to Succeed Vs. Symantec/Veritas in Patent Infringement

Veeam Software AG announced that the patent infringement cases Symantec Corp. (now Veritas Technologies, LLC) brought against Veeam more than four years ago are finally over with the federal district court’s dismissal with prejudice of the consolidated legal actions.

The court and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have vindicated Veeam’s innovative approach to delivering Availability solutions for the Always-On Enterprise, demonstrating that vendors seeking to prolong the longevity of legacy technologies cannot suppress innovation and crush the innovative approaches of disruptive providers with unsubstantiated legal claims.

“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,” said William H. Largent, CEO, Veeam. “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 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.”

Veeam has triumphed after a four-year dispute initiated by Symantec because Symantec’s legacy physical backup products could not compete with Veeam’s 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 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.

With the recent Federal Circuit decision affirming the USPTO’s decision that the asserted claims on the last remaining Symantec patent were not patentable, its efforts to remove Veeam as a competitor effectively came to an end.

In all, the USPTO found as unpatentable the asserted claims of seven Symantec Patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 7,831,861; 7,024,527; 8,117,168, 7,480,822, 7,093,086; 6,931,558; and 7,191,299.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has now dismissed all eight asserted patents with prejudice.

The Sterne Kessler team representing Veeam in the District Court and USPTO proceedings are Mark Fox Evens, Lori A. Gordon, Byron L. Pickard, Michael Q. Lee, Michael B. Ray, Jonathan M. Strang, Daniel S. Block, and Peter H. Dykstra, Ph.D.