BAAR, Switzerland; May 13, 2015 – Veeam Software, the innovative provider of solutions that deliver Availability for the Modern Data Center, today announced that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board has issued final written decisions on four more inter partes reviews in Veeam's favor. The decisions conclude that all of the remaining patent claims Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) asserted against Veeam in its second lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Northern California are invalid, thus vindicating Veeam’s innovative approach to delivering availability solutions for the modern data center.
These final written decisions pertain to Symantec’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,831,861; 7,024,527; 8,117,168 and 7,480,822.
To date, the USPTO has invalidated the asserted claims in a total of seven Symantec patents as being obvious or anticipated by prior art; as earlier in July 2014, the USPTO invalidated the asserted claims in three other Symantec patents (7,093,086; 6,931,558; and 7,191,299), part of the first lawsuit against Veeam.
“These final USPTO decisions mean Symantec can never again assert these patents against Veeam’s products,” said Ratmir Timashev, CEO at Veeam. “We are delighted with the USPTO’s decisions, which are a testament that the U.S. patent system does not protect patents that do not represent authentic innovation.”
These USPTO decisions are the latest triumphs for Veeam in a three-year dispute initiated by Symantec because its legacy physical backup products could not compete with Veeam's innovative approach to delivering availability solutions for the modern data center. 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 data 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 by Symantec.
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..
About Veeam Software
Veeam recognizes the new challenges companies across the globe face in enabling the Always-On Business, a business that must operate 24/7/365. To address this, Veeam has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Modern Data Center by helping organizations meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data, through a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance, verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility. Veeam Availability Suite, which includes Veeam Backup & Replication, leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies that enable the modern data center to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs.
Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 30,500 ProPartners and more than 145,500 customers worldwide. Veeam’s global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has offices throughout the world. To learn more, visit http://www.veeam.com.