I continue my series of materials of judicial chronicles with an article about court proceedings of a Russian antivirus manufacturer - Kaspersky Lab Company (hereinafter referred to as Kaspersky Lab, Kaspersky, LC, Lab should be considered synonymous). The head of the company, Yevgeny Kaspersky, is always happy to personally inform the world about the next victory of his lawyers and again to say hello to the patent trolls. I can not say that the judicial portfolio of the creators of the antivirus is replete with a huge number of court cases, but those covered in the article definitely deserve attention. Judge for yourself: the company successfully discourages claims of patent trolls and itself starts a case against one of these, opposes strange lawsuits from individuals and its competitors, and the geography of the processes is stretched from the US to China - in short, LC lives a very rich judicial life. Although this article does not pretend to be complete (for example, it does not contain materials about companies with Tall Licensing and Uniloc , Grebennikov and Wroblewski ), but it is quite possible to get an idea of ​​how and where the Lab has to defend its rights in legal proceedings.




')

v. Zango

The first case in this review is a lawsuit between Zango and LK. Zango Inc. - American Internet company that provides its users with the help of its own software (Zango, Seekmo, etc.) access to an online catalog of movies, games, music and software in exchange for users viewing advertisements while using the browser. Zango also has a premium premium version of its software, which allows users to view the same content without ads.

Such software from Zango was qualified by Kaspersky Lab software as adware (adware), which is one of the types of malware, on the basis of which Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus started blocking such Zango software on their users' devices. . A similar category of adware programs Zango assigned and such companies as Symantec and McAfee.

Kaspersky described such actions by Kaspersky as a violation of her rights, and in May 2007, the company filed a lawsuit against Kaspersky with a Washington state court for an injunction, unlawful interference in contractual relations, violation of Washington State Law on Consumer Protection, defamation of products and unjust enrichment. The ground in the Zango lawsuit was blocking Zango advertisements as potentially malicious LC programs. Zango said that such locks hinder her from doing business with its own users. At the same time, she did not have similar problems with software from other manufacturers (McAfee, Norton, Webroot). In its lawsuit, Zango demanded that LC should reclassify Zango advertisements from potentially harmful to harmless ones.

It is noteworthy that filing a similar lawsuit against the protection of its software was not the first judicial attempt by Zango. So, with different success she already sued regarding the assessment of the nature of her software, labeled as spyware: in 2005 there was a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Logan Simios (Logan Simios) against Zango (formerly 180solutions at the time), against the company Zone Labs. So at the time of filing a lawsuit with Kaspersky, Zango has already accumulated some experience in such litigations. Interestingly, at the same time with Kaspersky, PC Tools fell under a separate distribution from Zango, having received a claim for the same cases.

In Kaspersky, found procedural grounds for consideration of the case in another court, and the consideration of the litigation was transferred to the federal district court, where Kaspersky won it.

The defense argument of the Russian company was built on the fact that its activities were fully subject to the provisions on the so-called "safe harbor" (safe harbor) of the Law on Observance of Decency in Communications (Communications Decency Act 1996). This provision was adopted in connection with the need to delimit users from inappropriate content, and it defines the criteria of behavior, compliance with which will allow not to be recognized as a person who violated the law.

The key question was whether to recognize Kaspersky as an “interactive computer service” in the sense of Article 230 (c) (2) of the said law. The court acknowledged that LC is indeed such a service, despite the fact that its software was independently updated when it was connected to the server, since Kaspersky software users could independently configure its configuration installed on their devices.

The Washington District Court ruled that neither the provider nor the user of interactive computer services should be held accountable for any act committed voluntarily and in good faith if it was aimed at restricting access or accessibility of material that the provider or the user considered indecent, obscene, lustful, vile, excessively cruel, abusive or other similar, regardless of whether such material is constitutionally protected or not, or for any other action, The direction to take action Content providers or other persons with the help of technical means to block access to such material.

As a result, the court ruled in favor of Kaspersky, declaring it not to be liable for the operation of its software. Zango filed an appeal.

In the appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the “safe harbor” provisions also apply to service providers that block and monitor the infringing material, and determined that neither such provider nor the user of the interactive computer service should be held liable for technical limitation of access to materials that the provider or user deems depraved, excessively cruel, obscene.

The appellate court rejected Zango’s argument that such legal immunity should not extend to Kaspersky, since Kaspersky classified Zango’s programs as malicious. The court ruled that the law only refers to the fact that immunity is granted to providers who provide the opportunity or can independently restrict access, and Kaspersky falls under this definition, even though Kaspersky classified Zango programs according to its own security classification of third-party software. .

The final conclusion of the court (already in 2009) was the statement that in any case the final decision on limited access to specific materials (including software) is left to the end user, therefore the decision was made in favor of Kaspersky.

The court decision was also welcomed by other companies specializing in computer security. SecureWorks noted that such an approach would protect computer security specialists who publish information about vulnerabilities, especially when such information helps in creating protective measures to eliminate such vulnerabilities.

Simon Clausen, executive director of PC Tools, said that the decision in favor of Kaspersky was “another great achievement for the antivirus industry and for consumers. The court decision not only protected consumer choice, but also creates a good precedent for protecting both users and antivirus vendors. ”

In Kaspersky itself, they noted that “this solution protects the consumer’s right to independently decide what information and software he uses on his computer, as well as the right of anti-virus software companies to identify and classify some programs as potentially unwanted and dangerous for users.”

v. Rising Technologies

The next story about China and about a local player in the Chinese market for antivirus systems is RisingTechnologies Co., Ltd.

In May 2007, Kaspersky Anti-Virus identified one of the files of the Rising antivirus update program as a virus. Such triggers concerned only those devices of users who had software from both companies, LC and Rising, installed simultaneously. According to David Emm, a senior technology consultant at Kaspersky, the problem was resolved as soon as possible.

In turn, the Chinese company did not arrange the situation at all, and a short time later, she made a public statement, according to which Kaspersky's anti-virus software allegedly made 22 errors in the period from November 2006 to May 2007, and thus Kaspersky “neglected Chinese users. It was also stated that the company hired people to criticize Rising through the Kaspersky forums and blogs, who wrote that "Rising product is useless", "cannot find a virus", etc. According to Rising, such actions have caused the deterioration of economic indicators of Rising and the subsequent losses. In addition, Rising has publicly announced a reward of 1 million yuan to those who continue to search for other evidence of Kaspersky’s misconduct against the Chinese company.

At the Laboratory, such a statement was considered sufficient to start a trial on the basis of unfair competition from Rising, and in June 2007 it was represented by its regional company in China, Kaspersky (Tianjin) Technology Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Rising in Tianjin. In addition to Rising, Tianjin Times Online Co., Ltd was identified as a co-defendant in the case, through which Rising made public announcements in the media.

The lawsuit stated that Rising had violated Chinese law by claiming that LC was damaging its users' computers. In addition, Rising has slandered the company, stating that LK hired people to criticize Rising in online forums and other resources, and thus unfair competition was conducted in relation to Rising.

In addition, the lawsuit claimed the immediate elimination of violations by Rising and her bringing a public apology to LK, as well as compensation in the amount of 5.75 million yuan. As for Times Online, a request was made to remove a statement that contained information about Rising, within which a violation was committed.

According to representatives of Kaspersky, the reason for such a massive campaign to discredit LC was the fear of Rising to lose its share in the Chinese market of anti-virus systems due to the growth in sales of Kaspersky software on it.

Rising, in its press release regarding the lawsuit filed against it, called Kaspersky Lab "the king of false positives", recalling that one of these alleged false positives related specifically to the file that is included in the anti-virus software of Rising itself, and also pointed out that for the last two weeks of such false positives happened six times.

After the unsuccessful attempts of the co-defendants to transfer the court dispute to another court, in November 2007, hearings were held on the merits. Ultimately, on December 19, 2007, the court ruled that Rising was found to have committed the offenses filed in the lawsuit and therefore was obliged to pay the plaintiff monetary compensation in the amount of 451,000 Chinese yuan, as well as bring a public apology to the LC during the week and delete all messages , published by her, which were recognized by the court as defamation of the plaintiff.

Thus, this conflict ended in favor of Kaspersky.

v. IPAT

The following story also took place in the United States. The plaintiff was IPAT, which is also known for its many patent litigations. The lawsuit was filed in December 2008 immediately to 22 defendants, among them Kaspersky Lab. The reason is a violation of the claimant’s patents 5,311,591 (“Computer Security Information System Structures”) and 5,412,717 (“Computer Security Data Structures”) registered with the US Patent Office in mid 1990s These patents describe a way to restrict the launch of programs, which includes a large number of software from the field of computer security (for example, firewalls).

The plaintiff found that Kaspersky (as well as the other defendants) violated patents by creating, using, providing, offering for sale and selling devices and / or software to protect and / or authenticate information, and also encouraged others to take these actions. . The claimant did not give any consent to the use of patents and did not license them to the defendants.

The lawsuit was filed in Texas because (according to the plaintiff’s statement) each of the respondents conducted business in this state. It is worth noting that it is this state that is known for its loyal attitude to patent trolls in their court cases, so it is not surprising that the IPAT decided to sue there.

In its lawsuit, IPAT requested that defendants' patent rights be violated and award compensation for the violations and order the defendants to eliminate the violations (in fact, require the defendants to enter into licensing agreements with the plaintiff, or wind down their business in Texas).

In Kaspersky, they took a principled position, making it clear that no concessions to "IT racketeers" are planned, and at the same time began to call on other companies (defendants in this matter) to join the defense and not surrender to the plaintiff, explaining that only such an approach can help get rid of from "patent parasites."

According to Yevgeny Kaspersky, patents that the American inventor Eddison Fisher received in his time were the subject of a dispute. In his opinion , the patents were issued for a method of monitoring applications, "obvious to an IT specialist at that time."

It is also noteworthy that there were certain difficulties with the place where the claim was considered: as mentioned earlier, it was filed in Texas, and there such processes are considered fairly quickly, so the company had little time to conduct an in-depth analysis of the situation and prepare counter-arguments to provide its position in court.

Despite the limited time and other difficulties associated with preparing for the case and its subsequent conduct, the company prepared an excellent defensive position and implemented it in numerous court sessions. Ultimately, while the court considered the claimant’s regular arguments and studied the defendant’s counter arguments, the claimant filed a motion to discontinue the lawsuit, which was approved in June 2012 by the Eastern District Court of Texas and approved, thus ending the IPAT claim to the Kaspersky Lab without the right to file any other claims in the future to the LC on the identical basis that was the subject of this legal proceeding. And thus, Kaspersky achieved a significant victory for himself in patent matters.

For all this judicial history, the company spent 3 years of work of its employees and $ 2.5 million in expenses. But the costs ultimately paid off.

This case is remarkable because (according to Evgeny Kaspersky himself), the Russian company was the only one of the 35 respondent companies who decided not to agree with the patent troll about any cash payments in relation to the demands made on them, but decided to seek justice in North American courtrooms.

In addition, in this case, the company was the only one who decided to defend his case in court. It should be noted that she managed to defeat the local troll in his own jurisdiction, at the same time creating a good legal precedent and showing how to resist such claims and win such litigation.

v. Lodsys

Another court conflict with the patent troll company was dealing with the American company Lodsys. Lodsys is a classic patent troll located in Marshall, Texas. He is known for his patent lawsuits in the United States (for example, against companies Walt Disney, Gameloft, Apple), because he believes that many companies violate his patents on technology regarding in-app purchases.

The following two patents were the subject of this legal proceeding: 7,222,078 (“Methods and systems for a collection of goods across a network”) and 7,620,565 (“Customer-based product design module”).

These two patents with a priority date from the 90s were obtained by Lodsys in 2010 from another prominent representative of the American patent trolls cohort - Intellectual Ventures, which at one time acquired them from the original copyright owner Daniel Abelow. It is often assumed on the Web that Lodsys is a subsidiary of Intellectual Ventures, but the company itself denies this connection.

Shortly thereafter, Lodsys found application for its new baggage of intellectual property, sending in 2011 dozens of claims to various companies that they allegedly violate its rights to the patents mentioned. Despite the fact that patents contain vague language (for example, “triggered event” and “perception of information”), they, according to Lodsys, are fully applicable to modern technologies and therefore subject to legal protection.

A year later, Lodsys filed a lawsuit to companies that had previously received such claims and voluntarily did not want to settle the conflict and thereby quench the financial appetites of the right holder. This time there were 55 respondents (among them Kaspersky Lab, HP, Symantec, Samsung), the cost of the suit is $ 25 million, and its place of filing is well-known to the patent trolls of Texas.

According to the plaintiff, his patents included, in particular, notifications about new versions of anti-virus databases, cloud security technologies, the acquisition of a license and its renewal, i.e. many user interaction solutions through a software interface.

In Kaspersky, such claims of the patent troll were rejected, stating that they cannot be considered justified. As said laterEvgeny Kaspersky: “If a user sends feedback by clicking, for example, the“ report an error ”button, this is a patent infringement! No, really! This is how to patent the idea of ​​the Internet without its practical implementation. ”

According to the antivirus company, the controversial patents were not related to its own technologies. As noted laterLawyer of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Daniel Nazer, that covers these patents, rather refers to the method of receiving feedback from a user in a remote way, like faxes. Kaspersky specialists analyzed controversial patents and other related documents (in total, more than 2 thousand). According to the results of the analysis, the company submitted to the court a sufficient amount of information confirming that the technologies used in its products do not affect the claimant’s patented technologies.

Lodsys studied the counter-arguments provided by LC during the disclosure of evidence and concluded that it was better not to bring the trial to the hearing of the case on the merits, but to withdraw his lawsuit without the possibility of re-filing it. So the plaintiff did, withdrawing all of his claims against Kaspersky.

As a result, the lawsuit lasted for 1.5 years, and the expenditure budget of the manufacturer of the antivirus amounted to about $ 1 million. However, the company considers such costs as justified.

It should be noted that LK has become the only company among all co-respondents who resolved this conflict in the framework of the judicial process in their favor. The remaining companies, most likely, went to the settlement of the conflict and the satisfaction of the claims against them.

The aforementioned Daniel Weiser also noted that Kaspersky Lab, along with Twitter and Newegg, showed an excellent (albeit, unfortunately, expensive) example of how to combat patent trolls, proving that they can and should be fought. Moreover, according to one study regarding patents, which most often appear in court cases, companies that do not implement their patents in the industry, but only monetize them, benefit only about 10% of such cases on their claims.

The high cost of litigation in patent cases is a serious obstacle for small companies in defending their rights and interests before patent trolls. Most likely, the defeat in the case of Kaspersky did not stop Lodsys from further similar court-claim activities (after all, according to some sources, Lodsys already managed to receive payments from 400 companies), but it will be a good example of confrontation for other companies willing to take such experience on weapons.

v. Device security

Another case in which the LC itself decided to act as a plaintiff.

The whole history of Device Security began with the claim that arrived in Kaspersky Lab in September 2013, according to which using Kaspersky Lab’s anti-theft.kaspersky.com service and the mobile android application Kaspersky Mobile Security Kaspersky Lab carries out activities containing the invention Protected by a patent owned by Device Security.

Device Security is a legal entity affiliated with the well-known Canadian patent troll Wi-LAN. The patent mentioned in the claim is a patent 6,813,487("Method and apparatus for securing data stored in a remote electronic device"), registered in the United States. Interestingly, the text directed to Kaspersky claims the phrase “... In a Remote Location Device” in the title of the patent, while in the official publication the title contains a slightly different wording: "... in a remote electronic device" —that is . Lawyers hired by Device Security could not even correctly write the name of their client's patent. But, as they say, these are all trifles and this is not what this is all about now.

A controversial patent describes a method where the owner of a lost or stolen electronic device interacts with the network provider to which it is connected. With the help of this invention it is possible to determine the location of a lost or stolen device and send a special signal to it, allowing it to stop its use in normal mode, as well as download, delete or transfer to safe mode files on such an electronic device.

This time, Kaspersky Lab did not wait for a lawsuit from this company, but filed a lawsuit against it. The lawsuit was filed in Florida in October 2013, a month after receiving the claim. The claims stated the following:

1. recognize that Kaspersky does not violate the rights of the defendant in relation to the disputed patent
2. '487
3. , , - ( , , , , , , ) , , , , , , '487

The inventor for which the controversial patent was issued is David Alan Trommelen. According to Kaspersky Lab, the inventor has never worked in the telecommunications sphere at the time of filing an application for this patent, and his knowledge, which formed the basis of the patent, was obtained by him from open sources. It was also stated separately that the name of Trommelen as the author of the invention did not appear in any other patent issued in the United States.

According to the text of the claim, Kaspersky does not manage or control the network for users with remote electronic devices, and users of the Kaspersky Mobile Security mobile application cannot use it to notify that a device has been stolen. These and other arguments justify the position of the plaintiff that Kaspersky does not use inventions in his products, which are covered by the Device Security patent.

Moreover, the plaintiff demanded that the controversial patent itself be invalidated, arguing that as of the priority date of the '487 patent, firstly, the rules established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which required providers to ensure location of mobile devices, were already in force upon request, and secondly, the European patent application for the patent subsequently issued under the number 0899647A2 (“Remote security technology”) was published, which already described a similar security technology to devices at a distance.

Thus, according to the plaintiff, the patent must be invalid, since The “invention” of Trommelen, which covered this patent, in the understanding of the law, was not an invention at all.

In the course of the case, the defendant stated in his defense the objections to the suit. At some point, the parties reached an agreement on the mutual rejection of previously filed claims against each other regarding the disputed patent, however, Kaspersky still had the right to file a petition to recover from the defendant the court costs incurred by the claimant in this case on the basis of Section 355 of Section 35 of the United States Code ( US Code).

The laboratory did not postpone the realization of such a right for a long time and stated a corresponding petition in the amount of more than $ 250,000. Of course, the defendant objected to the compensation of such expenses. The court analyzed the arguments of the parties and, as a result, the LC refused to satisfy her claims. Kaspersky filed an appeal against this decision of the court, but at the time of publication of this material, the court of appeal did not make a final decision on the stated complaint against the decision of the court of the previous instance. In general, for judicial practice of the United States such penalties are really rare. Therefore, if Kaspersky will still be able to achieve recovery - it will be a huge success for the company.

Why did LC decide to initiate this trial? The reasonsYevgeny Kaspersky outlined in his blog, I quote it below:

The first (and most important): passivity towards trolls is a strategically losing position. In this fight, you can win only by knocking out your opponent’s economic base. The IT industry has many more resources and the sooner the whole world begins to press them, the cheaper it will be. After all, with each new victory (their victory) the price of the celebration (our celebration) of good over evil increases! Out-of-court settlement of patent disputes with trolls is the same as getting into your pocket, shifting the problem from a sore head to a healthy one, and your own. Nonsense!

Second: the plaintiff determines the rules of the game (including the place of consideration of the claim), which significantly increases the chances of success.

: . . (!) . No more easy money! .

: – , . .

: , , IT-. – .

Finally: why wait? Device Security has already begun to monetize its patent. Azurion is already being judged with might and main, we are also sent a "letter of happiness."

Regardless of whether Kaspersky will be able to recover the above legal costs, we can say that the LC has presented another good lesson from Device Security itself and other rightholders who similarly abuse their patents.

v. Barbara machowicz

This time, the antivirus company received a lawsuit in January 2014 in Illinois from an individual who is a US citizen Barbara Machowicz. The essence of the lawsuit is as follows: according to the plaintiff, Kaspersky unlawfully forced her to purchase paid anti-virus software through the free Kaspersky Security Scan program (abbreviated KSS), the purpose of which is to “identify undetected malicious software, software vulnerabilities and other non-malicious problems security. " The plaintiff believed that this software was designed to detect fictitious security threats and force the average purchaser to purchase paid LC software solutions, and such actions violate the Illinois State Deception and Consumer Consumer Business Practices (ICFA),inducement to deception and unjust enrichment.

In a response from Kaspersky, it was stated that all claims of the plaintiff were rejected as having no legal basis. As part of its functionality, the KSS program really recommends to its users how the security problems identified by it on users' devices can be eliminated, and suggests ways to solve them. One of these ways is really an offer to purchase a paid software company.

According to Barbara, this marketing LC policy is in fact the spread of a fake antivirus that generated false security status checks on the user's device in order to convince the user to purchase its paid software.

Speaking about the events preceding the filing of the claim, the picture was as follows:

In September 2013, Barbara established herself KSS. After completing the scan of your computer with this program, received a report on detected problems, accompanied by a button “CLICK FOR SOLUTION”, which forwarded it to the respondent’s website, where she was shown the following messages: PC ”,“ Kaspersky products provide recommendations on how to fix security problems ”,“ GET SOLUTION TO SECURITY ISSUES NOW ”.

Believing that problems really were discovered on her device, Barbara purchased Kaspersky Internet Security for $ 54.95. She was frustrated with the purchase and she was suspicious that KSS had informed her of fictional problems so that she would get a full paid solution from Kaspersky. She submitted a request to the company, but was refused a refund.

Barbara, with the help of her lawyer, decided to conduct an experiment by installing KSS on a new computer. And according to the results of his checking on this device, problems were also found! In her opinion, the problems stated in the report, “related to the settings of the installed programs and the operating system,” in fact do not pose any threat to the computer.

First, an active autorun from removable media was indicated as a potential problem. According to the plaintiff, this could be a risk in previous versions of Windows, but the latter have built-in special protection against such threats.

Secondly, KSS reported several vulnerabilities associated with programs such as Microsoft IE and Windows Explorer. She considered that these threats are not significant, since the Kaspersky site classified them as “not too dangerous. There is no need to correct them. ” In other words, KSS forced to purchase paid software, while the stated threats could be insignificant.

Thirdly, many of the threats were related to setting up Windows in terms of showing file extensions. According to Barbara, the demonstration of such threats was intended only to increase the total number of stated threats, so that users were impressed and purchased paid software.

Fourthly, the KSS noted the cookies of the Kaspersky site as potential threats too.

In February 2014, Kaspersky Lab changed the jurisdiction of the case and transferred the lawsuit to the federal court, where it filed its petition for termination of the lawsuit.

In her defense, Kaspersky stated that Barbara could not determine which alleged false threats were detected by KSS on her computer, could not explain why or for what reason they were identified as false, could not explain which the report did not actually represent a threat. Those.In the absence of such evidence, Barbara’s claim, filed in September 2013, seems like a false claim. According to lawyers at Kaspersky, Barbara, in her judgments, could not rely only on the results of her experiment with another device.

It should be noted that Barbara was never able to provide confirmation of the version of which Windows she had on both of the devices being checked. But the court determined that in the light of the stated facts such provision of information is not mandatory.

The court also determined that the case is subject to consideration on issues of improper inducement of the consumer to act.

In the course of the further development of the lawsuit from Kaspersky, a detailed report was provided on each of the 112 vulnerabilities that KSS can detect on the user's device, due to its functionality. Were also given real examples of the use of such vulnerabilities by third parties in cases where such vulnerabilities have not been eliminated.

But at some point the process turned in an unexpected way: the plaintiff’s lawyers said that she had ceased to get in touch with them, and eventually the lawsuit was withdrawn (without the right to reappoint it).

So this interesting thing ended up in such an unusual and fast way. Most likely, the plaintiff considered for herself the alleged outcome of the case in her favor as completely unpromising, and, it seems, decided in such a peculiar manner to get out of this court game.

v. Vitaly Pilkin

Kaspersky had another case where an individual was the plaintiff. This time it was in Russia and Vitaly Pilkin acted as the plaintiff - the same inventor who has an outstanding patent portfolio and who once attracted media attention with his case against Sony (and also against MVideo and Eldorado ) regarding the PS Vita game console.

The reason for filing the suit was the article by Evgeny Kaspersky “Genius, paradoxes friend.” , Published in June 2015 in his blog, which, among other things, highlighted the unsuccessful judicial attempt by Pilkin to bring Yandex to responsibility for violation of his patent 2422877(“The way of designation of infected electronic files”) - and it’s funny that the list of patent documents cited in the search report also contains the Kaspersky Software User Guide.

In a nutshell, the court dismissed those claims by Pilkin against Yandex. And the head of the anti-virus company in this article simply colorfully described why the court was right and why the patent was about nothing, at the same time sharing with the readers of his blog the results of the citizen-inventor’s activities and some thoughts on them (let me quote them):

- . , . , (a) « », () () .

It would seem that this story should have ended, but this citizen would not be himself if he had left such attention to his person without any reaction on his part. The reaction was not long in coming, and soon the Golovinsky District Court in September 2015 filed a lawsuit against Evgeny Kaspersky and his company in defense of his honor and dignity. In essence, the plaintiff tried to present the Kaspersky article as a deliberate dissemination of deliberately false and derogatory information about the plaintiff in order to exert additional influence on the court considering the case of the plaintiff and Yandex. The claims include the recovery of a sum of money as compensation for non-pecuniary damage and the obligation to remove and refute the statements discrediting the honor and dignity of the plaintiff. The amount of the claim draws attention to itself - 750 million rubles (375 million each from the Laboratory and Kaspersky itself). From his point of view, for Kaspersky to realize his responsibility for the actions he committed, the amount of compensation should be sensitive for him. And since, according to various estimates, his condition amounts to $ 1 billion, the amount claimed in the lawsuit as an expected compensation would be, in the opinion of the plaintiff, quite fair and sensitive.

The court of first instance in December 2015, quite expectedly, refused to satisfy the claims, stating that the Kaspersky article under discussion did not contain information that could be considered defamatory to the honor and dignity of the claimant or diminishing his business and professional reputation, and the article itself is a realized Kaspersky the right to have and express your opinion and judgment.

The plaintiff, of course, did not accept such a court decision, and he filed an appeal complaining that the court of first instance unreasonably refused the plaintiff to order a forensic examination to determine whether the plaintiff is a patent troll or not. But the Moscow City Court, as a subsequent court instance, upheld the decision of the court of first instance without any changes.

Judging by the information on the website of the court, the lawsuit is divorced into 2 separate proceedings (cases No. 02-2968 / 2016 and 02-2969 / 2016), and the Pilkin lawsuit against Kaspersky Lab will be considered in the near future, namely June 27, 2016

So, at the time of publication of the article, this entire extraordinary trial was not completely completed, but the “patent and judicial history” and judicial acts already passed in this case suggest that everything will end well for the respondents.



In sum, a similar review of court practice allows, in my opinion, to draw the following conclusions.

First, patent litigations are a significant proportion of the company's lawsuits, and they are pending in US courts. The vast majority of patent disputes in the United States are resolved by concluding an out-of-court agreement (settlement), almost no one wants to bring the case to the court hearing stage to evaluate the evidence. Kaspersky Lab, by virtue of its large budget and principled position of management, seeks to bring such cases to a logical conclusion, seeking recognition by the plaintiffs or the court that the company did not in any way infringe patents that are subject to litigation. And as we can see, this one succeeds (even if it costs you too much time, effort, and money).

Secondly, it is noteworthy that the LC is divided into general information about its judicial practice (and not only in Russian) - the relevant materials appear in the Kaspersky blog or press releases of the company. This allows you to attract media attention (which in one way or another helps to shape public opinion regarding a particular case about the position of the LC and the wrongness of its opponents).

Thirdly, the Laboratory publicly states also the strategy for its legal cases. For example, in cases of patent dispute category, you can cite their publication on Habré with tips on how to combat patent trolls as a vivid example. For some specialists, such information may not be something new, but for many people (especially for those who themselves have come across such problems for the first time), such knowledge will not be superfluous.