Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Patent War Spurred By Vintela Acquisition

A patent war has broken out between Quest Software and Centrify Corp., over patents held by Lindon, Utah-based Vintela, which was acquired by Quest in 2005. Late Friday, California-based Quest Software said it has filed a patent infringement suit against competitors Centrify Corp. and Likewise Software, over its U.S. Patent No. 7,617,501. According to Quest, the patent covers the extension of Windows Group Policy into Unix, Linux, Mac, and other non-Windows computer systems. Quest gained that patent as part of its $57M acquisition of Vintela in 2005. In reaction to the patent suit, Centrify filed its own countersuit on Monday, alleging Quest's Authentication Services infringe on its U.S. Patent No. 7,591,005. Centrify said its patent covers the capability of UNIX and Linux service accounts and root accounts to be authenticated with a centralized directory.