Texan firm sues whole security world
Swathe of major security providers cited in patent infringement case.
A small Texan firm has taken on the mightiest corporations from across the security and anti-malware industry, launching
a patent infringement suit against most of the major players in the field.
The company, Information Protection and Authentication of Texas LLC (IPAT), holds a pair of US patents dating from the
mid-1990s which it alleges are being infringed by Symantec, McAfee, Microsoft, Sophos,
AVG, Trend Micro, ESET, Norman, Check Point, CA, Kaspersky,
Sunbelt, Iolo, PC Tools, Webroot and Novell, among others.
The patents appear to cover technologies controlling the behaviour of software by restricting access to data and other
software, including standard operating systems such as writing to disk, based on lists of allowed and banned activities
associated with the software in question. In effect, this would cover most of the technologies used in the wide range
of behaviour-based anti-malware protection systems.
Official documents related to the case are online
here, with a PDF of the
complaint itself
here. The two
patents in question can be viewed
here and here.
06 January 2009
Tags:
behaviour blocking, legal, patent.
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2 comments
Looks like the malware creators have another upper hand again. Better watch out for more patents like these ones.
by Daniel, 22 January 2009, 14:11
I'm surprised a patent was granted on an idea and not a working software application.
by darryl austie, 03 February 2009, 13:21
This month's VB100 test saw some major changes and a radical overhaul of the VB100 test methodology - for the first time allowing products to use their 'cloud' look-up systems. John Hawes has all the details.