Anti-virus company Trend Micro are suing Barracuda Networks [1] on the grounds that Barracuda are using ClamAV anti-virus on their spam and anti-virus gateway products, something Trend Micro claims breaches their patent on anti-virus software being used in SMTP and FTP gateways.
It’s a court matter so I won’t say much, except that if the claim is upheld, then Trend Micro will have a green light to sue many many companies and open source projects for the same thing.
The patent is, in my opinion, ridiculous, but it’s a patent none-the-less and it will be interesting to see the outcome of this court case. Regardless of the outcome, the ramifications will be felt.
Samuel