Webroot has filed lawsuits against rivals CrowdStrike, Kaspersky, Sophos and Trend Micro, alleging patent infringement related to internet security and malware detection.

On March 4, Webroot and parent OpenText filed the patent infringement suits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

An OpenText spokesperson provided the following statement:

“OpenText brings these lawsuits to protect its intellectual property investments and to hold these parties accountable for their infringement and unlawful competition. These lawsuits allege that defendants infringe and unlawfully compete against aspects of the OpenText family of companies’ endpoint security products and platforms. OpenText intends to vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights.”

The lawsuits seek damages from the four companies, as well to stop future patent infringement. They also seek jury trials.

Individual Software and Services

Webroot alleges CrowdStrike, Kaspersky, Sophos and Trend Micro provide security software and systems that, “without authorization, implements plaintiffs’ patented technologies.”

Webroot alleges that some of its competitors’ best-known products infringe its patents. Those include:

Webroot/OpenText Now a ‘Patent Troll’?

Kevin Simzer is Trend Micro‘s COO.

Trend Micro’s Kevin Simzer

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “Perhaps OpenText is struggling with the less-than-successful assets they have acquired over the years so they need to transform into a ‘patent troll’ type of company. We will vigorously defend ourselves.”

A CrowdStrike spokesperson provided the following statement, also accusing OpenText of becoming a “patent troll”:

“Legitimate licensing discussions start with a phone call, not a lawsuit. This type of action is something we would expect from a patent troll, not a cybersecurity company that should be laser-focused on protecting their customers, instead of suing competitors.”

Sophos said “since this is active litigation, we are not commenting at this time.”

Kaspersky said it is reviewing the issue.