VMware Inc must pay $84.5 million for infringing two patents belonging to rival software company Densify, a Delaware federal jury said on Monday.

The verdict, made public Tuesday, said VMware willfully violated Densify’s patent rights with its software for optimizing “virtual machines” used in cloud computing.

A VMware spokesperson declined to comment on the verdict, citing active litigation.

Densify CEO Gerry Smith said the company was “grateful” for the verdict, which “validated the hard work of our inventors.”

Canada-based Densify won a verdict worth nearly $237 million against VMware in the same case in 2020.

A federal judge threw out that verdict and ordered a new trial later that year. Densify’s patent-holding subsidiary owned the patents at issue, and Judge Leonard Stark said the parent company did not have sufficient rights to the patents to be involved in the case at the time.

Densify accused Palo Alto, California-based VMware’s vROps, vSphere and other software of infringing patents covering “virtualization” technology that enables multiple computer systems to run on a single server.

The lawsuit alleged that VMware used Densify’s technology as a “blueprint” for its own. Densify said VMware “dominates the virtual infrastructure market” and that it could “outspend Densify and swamp Densify’s marketing and sales” if its infringement is not stopped.

VMware argued it did not infringe and that the patents were invalid. It later filed its own patent infringement lawsuit against Densify, which is still ongoing.

Microsoft Corp. has agreed to pay more than $3 million in fines for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Russia and other countries after its software and services ended up in the hands of blacklisted companies and persons in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments on Thursday said they had reached a joint settlement with Microsoft over the apparent violations of U.S. sanctions and export controls rules, which the software giant voluntarily disclosed.

The sanctions violations, which occurred between July 2012 to April 2019, predate the larger Russian incursion into Ukraine that President Vladimir Putin launched in 2022. The U.S. and its allies have since significantly ratcheted up economic restrictions in response to the invasion.

The majority of the apparent violations involved blacklisted Russian entities in Crimea, but others were tied to blacklisted entities in Cuba, Iran and Syria, authorities said. Microsoft also allegedly violated regulations that seek to block sensitive technologies from reaching U.S. adversaries, according to the settlement.

“Microsoft takes export control and sanctions compliance very seriously, which is why after learning of the screening failures and infractions of a few employees, we voluntarily disclosed them to the appropriate authorities,” a Microsoft spokesman said.

The violations that led to Thursday’s settlement occurred in the context of Microsoft’s third-party distribution and reselling programs, according to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces U.S. sanctions.

Microsoft used an indirect resale model in Russia to develop sales leads and negotiate bulk sales with end customers, according to the Treasury unit. The alleged violations came about after Microsoft failed to obtain accurate information about some of these end users, OFAC said.

At times, employees at Microsoft’s subsidiary in Russia appear to have intentionally circumvented the company’s screening controls, in an effort to prevent other Microsoft affiliates from knowing the identity of the ultimate customers, OFAC added.

After blacklisting Stroygazmontazh, a Russian company that builds infrastructure for the oil-and-gas industry, in 2014, for example, Microsoft initially rejected one of the entity’s subsidiaries as a potential customer, according to OFAC.

That didn’t stop Stroygazmontazh from getting Microsoft products, however. Using a pseudonym, Microsoft employees in Russia were ultimately able to arrange orders for the company, OFAC said.

The Microsoft employees involved in the misconduct have been subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination, the company’s spokesman said Thursday.

Around the same period, there were also some shortcomings with Microsoft’s processes for screening restricted parties, OFAC said. In some cases, the company failed to screen for blacklisted companies or individuals’ Cyrillic or Chinese names, the Treasury unit said.

In total, Microsoft sold more than $12 million in products and services to blacklisted parties, according to OFAC.

The company’s export control violations occurred between December 2016 and December 2017, according to Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

On seven occasions, employees at Microsoft’s Russia subsidiary caused another Microsoft subsidiary to sell software to two companies on a U.S. restricted entities list, Commerce’s BIS unit said.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) on Monday imposed a €265 million ($277 million) fine on Facebook parent Meta for failing to prevent hackers from stealing the personal information of around 533 million Facebook users in a data breach that occurred in 2019.

The DPC is Meta’s lead privacy regulator within the European Union (EU), and has been conducting 13 more enquiries into the social media giant business practices.

In April 2021, Irish regulator launched an enquiry into the Facebook data leak, which exposed the personal details of about 533 million users from more than 100 countries.

The countries worst hit by the leak included Egypt (44 million records), Tunisia (39 million), the USA (32 million) and the UK (11 million). User data that was exposed included full names, phone numbers, gender, date of birth, location, relationship status and email address.

The DPC said it believed the leak might have violated one or more provisions of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and/or the Data Protection Act 2018.

Facebook said that the leak was related to an ‘old’ bug that was fixed by 2019 and that malicious actors had scraped the data using Facebook’s contact importer tool before September 2019. Scraping is the practice of using automated software to extract public information from the internet, which is subsequently distributed in online forums.

As part of its enquiry, the DPC evaluated the Facebook Search, Facebook Messenger Contact Importer and Instagram Contact Importer tools in regard to processing carried out by Meta between May 25, 2018 and September 2019.

The DPC has now concluded that Meta violated both Article 25(1) and Article 25(2) of the GDPR rules.

In addition to the financial penalty, Meta has also received a reprimand and an order directing it to bring its processes into conformity by completing a number of certain corrective measures within a particular timeframe.

“Because this data set was so large, because there had been previous instances of scraping on the platform, where the issues could have been identified in a more timely way, we ultimately imposed a significant sanction,” Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said.

“The risks are considerable for individuals in terms of scamming, spamming, smishing, phishing and loss of control over their personal data so we imposed a fine of €265 million in total.”

The Irish regulator said that other relevant EU authorities concurred with the conclusion made on Monday, following its sharing of a draft judgement with them last month.

A Meta spokesperson said that the company was carefully reviewing the Irish regulator’s decision.

“We made changes to our systems during the time in question, including removing the ability to scrape our features in this way using phone numbers,” the spokesperson said.

“Unauthorised data scraping is unacceptable and against our rules and we will continue working with our peers on this industry challenge.”

This is the fourth financial penalty issued against one of Meta’s firms by Ireland’s DPC.

In September, the watchdog fined Meta’s Instagram subsidiary a record-breaking €405 million.

Because Apple, Google, and other tech giants have chosen to locate their EU headquarters in Ireland, the DPC is the regulatory body that oversees them. The regulator currently has 40 investigations open into such companies.

Sydney-headquartered telecommunications engineering firm Serveno has been ordered to pay US software giant Autodesk $318,000. 

The Federal Court has ordered the company to pay Autodesk the sum due to copyright infringement of the latter’s AutoCAD software. 

According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), Serveno allegedly made 20 unlicensed copies of AutoCAD. The damages also covered the alleged unauthorised downloading and use of educational versions of AutoCAD by Serveno’s employees. 

Autodesk’s CAD product is computer-aided design software that architects, engineers and construction professionals rely on to create precise 2D and 3D drawings. 

The $318,000 payment comprises $159,000 in ‘compensatory damages’ and $159,000 in ‘additional damages’ was calculated by reference to the three-year subscription price of AutoCAD. 

According to BSA, a global advocate of legal software use, the decision is another example of the application of the ‘licence fee test’ to calculate compensatory damages based on Autodesk’s suggested retail price for AutoCAD and the availability of significant additional damages for specific and general deterrence as well. 

Serveno was founded in 2011 and has offices in India and the US as well as its native Sydney. The company supplies information and communications engineering, telecommunications consulting and business solutions and has partnerships with the likes of Microsoft, Telstra Air and Motorola. 

ARN has contacted Serveno for comment. 

The BSA also revealed legal settlements worth a combined total of $65,500 for using unlicensed software, including AutoCAD, back in 2017. 

The settlements saw the four unnamed Australian businesses agree to pay damages obtained for the use of unlicensed software, according to BSA. 

A Victorian retail fit-out company agreed to pay a $35,000 settlement after it was found to be using unlicensed copies of Autodesk’s AutoCAD, while a Perth firm was fined $10,000 for the same breach.

Software industry advocate BSA has revealed a settlement of $160,000 with a Sydney and Perth-based manufacturing company over copyright infringement, the biggest settlement the organisation has brought this year.

The offending company, which was not named, allegedly used at least 30 unlicensed copies of a number of CAD, data analytics and productivity software.

BSA spokespeople did not respond to queries when asked which software specifically was infringed. BSA lists a number of member software vendors as CAD, productivity and analytics vendors on its website, including Autodesk, MasterCam, Adobe, Microsoft, Dassault Systemes, Cadence, Bentley Systems, Cad Pacific, Frontline PCB and others.

Originally suspected of using copies of only one BSA member’s software, the manufacturing company was supposedly outed by an informant, discussions with whom allowed BSA to recognise the full scope of infringement.

The informant, who is set to receive a $10,000 reward, said the decision to dob the manufacturing company in came down to “personal morals and ethics”.

“We work in a competitive industry and while we’re all trying to get ahead, it didn’t feel right using infringing copies of software to give the business an unfair competitive advantage,” the informant told BSA under the condition of anonymity.

“The decision to report the business ultimately came down to my personal morals and ethics. I don’t believe it’s right to use software without paying for it.”

According to BSA, the manufacturing firm denied infringing copyright when confronted, but evidence provided by the informant led to the company admitting it was liable after extended negotiations.

“It’s important that people with information on unlicensed software usage come forward and report it,” BSA APAC senior director Tarun Sawney said. “We’re continuously working with BSA members to ensure that organisations are staying vigilant with their software licenses.

“The information we receive from informants is invaluable and plays a critical role in bringing corporate infringers to task. BSA is grateful to the informant for doing the right thing, and have provided the informant with a reward of AU$10,000 for his assistance in this matter.”

BSA said it also settled two other cases earlier this year. One with a Melbourne architecture firm paying $33,936 after one of its employees informed on them. The other, a Melbourne interior design firm which paid $40,00 in damages for 15 copies of unlicensed design and productivity software.

Big four accountancy firm EY has been fined £2.75m for a series of mistakes in the auditing of a tech company’s accounts five years ago.

EY and one of its partners, Julian Gray, admitted that their conduct “fell significantly short” of industry standards in relation to the accounts of Tech Data (formerly Computer 2000 Distribution) for the year ending January 2012.

Tech Data, a provider of computing software and equipment, found “significant accounting irregularities” in its past accounts in March 2013. As a result it revised down its operating profits for the year ending January 2012 from £14.4m to £5.5m.

An investigation by industry watchdog the Financial Reporting Council found that the auditors failed to obtain “reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole were free from material misstatement”.

EY and its partner also failed to obtain “sufficient appropriate audit evidence” and “exercise sufficient professional scepticism”, the FRC, which began its probe in 2014, said.

EY will receive a reprimand but will only have to pay £1.8m allowing for certain mitigating factors.

Mr Gray, who no longer works for EY, will receive a reprimand and a fine of £59,000, reduced from £90,000.

A spokeswoman for EY said: “Audit quality is an ongoing focus and priority to EY, however we recognise that we fell short of our professional standards on three matters in relation to the audit of Tech Data.

“EY is committed to performing high quality audits and has established a long-term audit quality programme in the UK and a dedicated Audit Quality Board, which are aligned to the steps we have taken globally. We also continue to invest in new technology, data analytics software and training for our people.

“The results of the latest inspection report from the FRC recognises the significant level of investment EY has made in audit quality, particularly over the last three years, and demonstrate our continued progress.”

The Business Journals say companies can protect themselves against unlicensed software use by:

1) conducting a self-audit of all electronic devices;

2) purchasing licenses immediately if under BSA scrutiny;

3) adopting software and hardware policies;

4) educating all staff on licensing use;

5) saving all purchasing receipts;

and 6) getting legal help if contacted by BSA.