Palo Alto Networks must pay Centripetal Networks $151.5 million after a jury decided that the security giant has infringed several patents.

The Judgment was pronounced on Wednesday in a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia and awarded Centripetal approximately $37.9 million for each of the four patents that were demonstrably infringed by Palo Alto Networks.

A spokesperson from Palo Alto Networks commented: "We are respectful of the jury's decision, which in our opinion contradicts both the law and the extensive evidence that we presented during the trial."

The Company Plans to Seek Relief through Subsequent Objections. Jonathan Rogers, Chief Operating Officer of Centripetal, said, "As a company, we firmly believe in the protection of intellectual property. Securing and preserving IP patents is critical for the promotion of technological creativity, innovation, and growth."

The Reston, Virginia-based Centripetal sued Palo Alto Networks in 2021, accusing it of illegally using its patents in technologies that are intended to prevent hackers from penetrating into computer systems, as part of their Cortex Cybersecurity platform and Next-Generation Firewall product.

The heading in English would be:

"The aforementioned technology logs, verifies, and filters data packets based on rules to distinguish legitimate data traffic from malicious access. Centripetal, which specializes in the combination of threat intelligence and network security, alleged in its original lawsuit that both companies had already discussed a partnership in 2016."

At that time, however, there was no continuation of the talks, even though Centripetal had disclosed details of its proprietary technology to Palo Alto Networks. Founded in 2009, Centripetal has already filed several patent infringement lawsuits.

In 2018, it sued the network equipment company Cisco Systems, accusing it of infringing on its patents in their firewalls. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in October 2020 in favor of Centripetal, awarding it $1.9 billion in damages, which at the time was the highest penalty for such a patent infringement in U.S. history.

However, the payment was later reversed. In 2017, Centripetal also sued the security company Keysight Technologies from Santa Rosa, California, for patent infringements in data processing technology. The case was settled with an agreement in which Keysight agreed to a multi-year licensing period.

According to Jeff Pollard, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, patent lawsuits in the cybersecurity industry are becoming more frequent due to the growing profit potential. However, such cases can be difficult because cybersecurity products like firewalls often operate on common technical principles, he explains.

"We will continue to be confronted with patent disputes over things that are essentially very standard features of a network device," said Pollard. Since 2019, more than 1,400 patent applications in the field of cybersecurity have been registered with WIPO Patentscope, a patent research group.

In the event of defeat, losers of a patent dispute often have to cease sales of their product or modify it to remove the contested features, says Pollard. However, the court has not yet ordered that Palo Alto must change its products.

Should this be the case, however, Palo Alto could ensure through software updates that its products no longer infringe upon Centripetal's patents. This would probably not cause major issues for customers, explains Pollard.

"For Palo Alto, it would be more of a technical issue, as well as a financial one," he says. This judgment in Centripetal's lawsuit coincides with Palo Alto's defense against patent infringement lawsuits by Finjan, an intellectual property company, and TaaSera, a security company, as regulatory filings indicate.