By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday overturned a $481 million ruling that New York’s Columbia University had won against software company Gen Digital for infringing patents related to cybersecurity technology.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said that Columbia’s patents may be invalid and sent the case back to Virginia federal court.
The appeals court also overturned the lower court’s decision to hold Gen Digital’s former law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, in contempt for litigation misconduct in the case.
A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment on the rulings. Spokespeople for Gen Digital and Quinn Emanuel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Columbia sued Gen Digital in Richmond, Virginia, in 2013, alleging the company’s antivirus software and other security products infringe six patents related to intrusion-detection systems. A jury determined in 2022 that the company infringed two Columbia patents and awarded the school $185 million in damages.
U.S. District Judge Hannah Lauck increased the award to more than $481 million in 2023 after finding that Gen Digital infringed the patents willfully. The Federal Circuit said on Wednesday that Columbia’s patents may be invalid because they cover abstract ideas and sent the case back for the Virginia court to analyze their validity.
Lauck had held the company’s former Quinn Emanuel attorneys in contempt for failing to comply with a court order to disclose their communications with an unfavorable witness, a former Gen Digital employee whom the firm kept from testifying at trial. The appeals court said Quinn Emanuel should not have been forced to disclose the communications because they were covered by attorney-client privilege.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
