By Maria Armental 
 

An appeals court on Tuesday ruled against Apple Inc. in a decade-old patent dispute with VirnetX Holding Corp. over communications features on iPhones, iPads and other devices that led to a $439.7 million award.

A second appeal to a related $595.9 million award is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized Washington-based court that handles patent appeals.

VirnetX sued Apple in 2010 saying that Apple's FaceTime and a feature related to virtual private networks violated its patents.

A federal jury awarded $368 million, but the award was thrown out on appeal.

A second jury awarded VirnetX about $302 million for Apple's FaceTime and VPN On Demand patent violations. The award was later increased to $439.7 million, including interest.

A royalty rate was set at $1.20 a unit and Apple was ordered to account for infringing units on a quarterly basis.

Nevada-based VirnetX, which makes most of its revenue from licensing patents, said Apple's patent violations prevented it from taking advantage of the release of its Gabriel security product.

Representatives for Apple and VirnetX couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

VirnetX stock was up 61% at $6.23 in late Tuesday trade.

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 15, 2019 16:08 ET (21:08 GMT)