Barracuda Seeks Open Source Community Help In Fighting Off Patent Infringement Claims

from the prior-art-please dept

Back in December, we wrote about how a patent lawsuit being brought by antivirus firm Trend Micro against security company Barracuda could make computers less secure. As details start to come out about the case, the situation seems even worse than originally stated. T.J. writes in to point us to a detailed history of the case. It starts off by noting that Barracuda is asking for help from the open source community in finding and submitting prior art. That's because Barracuda makes some use of the open source product ClamAV. However, the additional details provided show how anti-competitive Trend Micro's lawsuit is, rather than being one designed to push for "progress."

Specifically, it looks like Trend Micro worked out favorable deals with the big players in the space, McAfee and Symantec, and is now using those to suggest that the patent must be valid. Yet, in its demands to Barracuda, the terms are quite stringent -- clearly designed more to punish the company for doing something so obvious as creating a gateway for antivirus scanning. Furthermore, after threatening letters from Trend Micro, Barracuda did the smart thing and filed for a declaratory judgment in Northern California, rather than letting Trend Micro file in a place like Marshall, Texas. In response, Trend Micro used the increasingly popular loophole that gives them a second way to sue for patent infringement: bringing a claim to the US International Trade Commission, claiming that Barracuda (a US company) was illegally "importing" infringing products. This method has been an effective way for patent holders to get a second shot at attacking companies they accuse of infringement -- and doing so in a "court" that doesn't need to pay attention to Supreme Court rules on what's patentable and what's not. It all adds up to some fairly sleazy moves by Trend Micro, so if you have any prior art to help show that this patent never should have been granted in the first place, send it along.

Filed Under: open source, patents, security
Companies: barracuda, trend micro