U.S. District Court Rules Intellectual Ventures to Cover Certain Trend Micro Legal Fees After Failed Patent Claims

HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - September 7, 2017 - In a recent ruling, the U.S. District Court of Delaware ruled Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, will be reimbursed part of its legal fees incurred during a recent patent legal dispute. This unusually positive outcome stemmed from Trend Micro's earlier victory in 2016, when the same court confirmed the invalidity of patents asserted against Trend Micro by Intellectual Ventures (IV).

"We are pleased to see our claims confirmed by U.S. District Judge Leonard P. Stark, and are relieved this case can be behind us," said Eva Chen, CEO for Trend Micro. "A system for protecting legitimate intellectual property rights is important to our industry, and seeing at least part of our expenses covered when that system has been abused reaffirms the importance of legitimacy in the technology space. This is an important ruling not only for Trend Micro, but also for the industry."

Trend Micro will be requesting more than $1 million in response to this ruling to compensate for legal fees incurred as a result of IV's conduct. "Unfortunately, professional patent plaintiffs sometimes engage in questionable conduct that drives up the cost of litigation for the value creating companies they target and may confuse the jury into returning a bad verdict," said Felix Sterling, Trend Micro's Chief Legal Officer. "Judge Stark clearly wants to deter that sort of conduct, and recognizes that compensation is appropriate in the sort of exceptional circumstances we experienced in this case."

IV initially sued Trend Microfor infringement of various claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,460,050 ('050) and 6,073,142 ('142), seeking $150 million. IV asserted two other patents, but Trend Micro was able to get the company to drop those patents because IV likely believed them to not be infringed or invalid. IV dropped one of those during the pendency of its patent ineligibility motion. The district court of Delaware declared the claims of the two remaining patents as patent-ineligible, including '050 and '142.

During the course of these proceedings, Trend Micro has been represented by a team lead by Yar R. Chaikovsky with his partners D. Stuart Bartow and Allan Soobert of Paul Hastings LLP.

For more information regarding the case, please see Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Trend Micro Inc. et al., case number 1:10-cv-01067-LPS, residing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cyber security solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information.  Our innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. All our products work together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat defense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, faster protection. With more than 5,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world's most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables users to enjoy their digital lives safely.  For more information, visit www.trendmicro.com.hk.