McAfee is being sued by Dallas-based security firm
DeepNines because of alleged patent infringement and false product
marking.
DeepNines said it was issued US patent number 7,058,976 in June
for its Security Edge Platform (SEP), a unified threat management
product that integrates firewall, behaviour- and signature-based
intrusion detection (IDS) and prevention (IPS), antivirus and
traffic management into a single device.
But, DeepNines claims, McAfee has been marking and selling about
nine separate products that claim the patent as its own, including
McAfee IntruShield and
Total Protection, which the supplier
released in April to much fanfare.
As a result, DeepNines is seeking damages and a permanent
injunction to prevent McAfee from marketing and selling the
infringing products, company president Dan Jackson said. "We intend
to protect our intellectual property, just as we respect the
intellectual property rights of others" he said.
"Although DeepNines continuously monitors the products of its
competitors, at this point, our focus remains on McAfee for both
infringing our patent and falsely marking its products with a
patent that is invalid and purports to claim the same invention
covered by our patent."
Jackson would not specify what damages his company is seeking.
DeepNines was founded in 1999 and claims to have more than 200
product installations across industries such as financial services,
education, energy and government.
McAfee spokesperson Siobhan MacDermott declined to offer a
detailed response about the lawsuit because she had not yet seen a
copy of the full document. She did note that McAfee has its own
lawsuit pending against DeepNines, but she couldn't offer details
about that lawsuit, other than that it was filed in January.