Intellectual property protection and defense

Kaspersky always strives to protect exclusive rights to the results of its intellectual activities and defends these rights in court when they are violated. This helps us maintain fairness and legality in the business environment.

During the reporting period, the Company obtained 231 patents for its technologies in different jurisdictions.

The focus of patents for key technologies has shifted towards B2B products and KasperskyOS in recent years. These include SIEMSecurity Information and Event Management — a class of software products designed to collect and analyze information about security events., Research SandboxA sandbox for advanced threat research that can be deployed within a company’s corporate infrastructure. and machine learning technologies that not only identify new malicious objects, but also anomalies (MLADMachine Learning for Anomaly Detection.), as well as anti‑ransomware technologies.

The protection and defense of intellectual property has become an integral part of Kaspersky’s activities since 2005. Since this time, we have managed to build and optimize the processes involved in obtaining legal protection for our intellectual property. In addition, over the years, our Company has achieved the impressive result of not losing a single court case involving patent‑related lawsuits against us.

This experience and expertise not only helps us to successfully protect and defend our innovations, but also to promote the development of intellectual property as a whole.

In addition to improving our products, we are actively involved in the development of the open‑source movement. In 2022–2023 alone, Kaspersky published 20 open‑source projects that provide the entire developer community with access to our technologies. We believe in the importance of such publications and their value for cooperation and the exchange of experience and knowledge.

We also attach great importance to the education and support of employees who study at higher education institutions and wish to use our intellectual property in their research. We are developing a process giving them an opportunity to fulfill their aspirations and protect critical information. For this purpose, regulations and instructions are being drafted on issues related to the use of intellectual property.

In addition to protecting our own achievements, we believe it is important to promptly respond to and eliminate the risks associated with the misuse of the intellectual property of other companies within our organization, including the use of third‑party code. We are able to do this by introducing the appropriate policies, thoroughly verifying licenses and ensuring compliance with all the necessary rules and regulations.

Another crucial aspect of our work is the training and awareness of our employees. Each new employee undergoes special introductory training course, which provides a basic understanding of intellectual property.

In addition, in the second quarter of 2024, we plan to launch a specialized course on patents for employees of Kaspersky’s technical units. As part of the course, our colleagues involved in the development of new products will receive information about internal procedures related to intellectual property protection issues.

If needed, we are always ready to defend our rights in court. This is one of our key strategic positions. Most litigation occurs in the United States, largely as a result of patent trollsAn individual or legal entity whose business consists solely of receiving royalties for the use of patents it owns without attempting to put the patented inventions into practice.. In Russia, we have experience resolving disputes related to violations of antimonopoly legislation and have also successfully defended our interests.

We always strive to protect our rights by all available legal means, but are not willing to accept unreasonable settlement offers. Our goal is to ensure a fair and legal resolution to disputes that takes into account the positions of all parties involved.

During the reporting period, we resolved a patent dispute with a non‑practicing entity Cybersoft, who claimed that our product Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway violates a patent for a network security technology that can scan data transmitted over a network on a user’s device. We estimate that the dispute could have resulted in approximately US$500,000 in damages in the worst‑case scenario. However, we received a ruling in our favor in 2022. Cybersoft realized the futility of the case and moved for a settlement.

In March 2022, Kaspersky had to take on a new challenge involving a patent dispute initiated by the antivirus company Webroot in the United States. This was a historical case, since it was the first time we had to deal with litigation with our direct competitor. In June 2022, we filed a countersuit against Webroot in response to the infringement of our patent rights. The actual court hearings in this case are not expected to take place until November 2024. We are determined to protect our rights and minimize the possible negative impact of this dispute on the Company’s business and reputation.