Arent Fox Wins Software Patent Infringement Dispute for Acronis

WASHINGTON, DC — On July 24, a Texas federal judge ruled that Acronis, Inc. was the prevailing party in a patent infringement case against Uniloc USA, Inc. Arent Fox LLP Patent attorneys Janine A. Carlan, Michael Fainberg, and Jasjit S. Vidwan represented Acronis in litigation that resulted in the plaintiff being barred from further attempts to assert the patent against the Singapore-based company’s software.

“We are very pleased with the judge’s decision. Rather than giving in to meritless claims, we fought hard and were rewarded,” said Ms. Carlan. “We wanted to make sure that they could not attack Acronis, its affiliates, and its customers, again.” The decision can be found here.

In November 2015, Uniloc filed a patent infringement claim against Acronis before the US District Court of the Eastern District of Texas.  Rather than settling, Acronis fought the claims in district court and challenged the asserted patent by petitioning for inter partes review at the U.S.P.T.O. 

In reaching a motion to dismiss, Uniloc agreed that “Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and anyone acting on their behalf, are estopped to sue Defendant, Defendant’s affiliates, and Defendant’s customers for any claim of patent infringement, direct or indirect, with respect to the U.S. Patent No. 7,024,696.”

“Arent Fox will rigorously represent its clients against suits by non-practicing entities like Uniloc in federal courts and the Patent and Trademark Office using creative defensive and offensive legal strategies,” said Mr. Fainberg.

“It’s not unheard of in the IT industry for non-practicing entities to abuse the legal system claiming credit for other vendor’s work. Acronis has stood its ground making it clear that the company is determined to fight to win and will continue to do so with any would-be vendor challenging Acronis’ innovative technology,” said James Tucker Bradley, General Counsel at Acronis.

With a strong IP portfolio of 150 patents and patent applications, Acronis is one of the most innovative companies in the industry. More than 5 million consumers and 500,000 business customers in over 150 countries, use Acronis backup, disaster recovery, storage, and secure file sync and share solutions. Acronis delivers easy, fast, complete and affordable data protection of all files, applications and operating systems across any environment — virtual, physical, cloud, and mobile.

Arent Fox is a nationally recognized leader in patent litigation. The firm has been involved in hundreds of suits involving patent infringement and related IP issues. The patent litigation group includes a combination of patent lawyers with varied technical backgrounds and seasoned trial lawyers focusing only on patent litigation. In the past two decades, Arent Fox patent litigators have been lead counsel in more than 100 patent cases in numerous jurisdictions.

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