Litigation

VirtaMove, Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al.

Ongoing

7:24-cv-00030

Filed
2024-05-03

Patents at issue (1)

77840583 discretionary denials

Plaintiffs (1)

Summary

The complaint alleges that Amazon's cloud computing services, specifically its application migration and container orchestration platforms, infringe on the '058 patent. The case is ongoing.

Case overview & background

Plain-language overview of the case: parties, accused product, patents at issue, and why the suit matters.

VirtaMove, Corp. has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com Services LLC, and Amazon Web Services, Inc., alleging infringement of its cloud computing technology. VirtaMove, founded in 2011, is an operating company based in Ottawa, Canada, that develops software for migrating server applications to cloud or data center environments, specializing in Windows application migration using container-based solutions. The defendants are components of the global e-commerce and cloud computing giant, Amazon, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) being the primary focus of the allegations.

The core of the dispute revolves around Amazon's cloud computing services, specifically its application migration and container orchestration platforms, which VirtaMove claims infringe its intellectual property. The complaint asserts U.S. Patent No. 7,784,058 ("'058 patent") and U.S. Patent No. 7,519,814 ("'814 patent"). The '058 patent generally pertains to systems and methods for executing software applications across computing platforms, potentially utilizing container or virtualized environments. The '814 patent also generally relates to computer software.

The case was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Midland/Odessa Division, and assigned to Judge Alan D. Albright. This venue was historically favored by patent plaintiffs due to Judge Albright's active efforts to attract patent cases, implement fast-track schedules, and his restrictive approach to transfer motions. However, the case has since been transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, with the Federal Circuit denying VirtaMove's petition to vacate the transfer. The litigation is notable for targeting Amazon's extensive cloud infrastructure in a highly competitive market, and VirtaMove has also been involved in related patent assertions against other major tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Oracle. Amazon, in turn, has filed an inter partes review (IPR) against the '058 patent (IPR2025-00561) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Key legal developments & outcome

Major rulings, motions, claim construction, settlements, and the present posture or final disposition.

The patent infringement litigation VirtaMove, Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al. (7:24-cv-00030) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas has seen several key legal developments since its filing.

Key Legal Developments:

  • Filing & Initial Pleadings (2024-05-03): VirtaMove, Corp. filed its complaint on May 3, 2024, alleging that Amazon's cloud computing services, specifically its application migration and container orchestration platforms, infringe U.S. Patent No. 7,784,058 and U.S. Patent No. 7,519,814. Defendants Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com Services LLC, and Amazon Web Services, Inc. subsequently filed an answer, defenses, and second amended counterclaims.
  • Motion to Dismiss or Transfer (2025-01-22): Defendants filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer the case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland issued an Order Granting-In-Part and Denying-In-Part this motion on January 22, 2025. The court ultimately transferred the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (NDCA), invoking its authority under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1404 and 1406. This transfer was also influenced by a related VirtaMove case against Google, which was also transferred to NDCA.
  • Appeal of Transfer Order (2025-09-11): VirtaMove sought an extraordinary remedy by petitioning the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus to vacate the transfer order. On September 11, 2025, the Federal Circuit denied VirtaMove's petition, upholding the transfer of the case to the Northern District of California.
  • Claim Construction (Markman) Proceedings (2024-10-22): While the case was still in the Western District of Texas, a scheduling order outlined deadlines for claim construction. Amazon filed its opening claim construction brief on October 22, 2024, which included arguments that certain claim terms were indefinite. VirtaMove filed its responsive claim construction brief on November 12, 2024, and Amazon's reply was due by November 26, 2024.
  • Parallel PTAB IPR Proceedings (2025-01-30, 2025-01-31): Several Inter Partes Review (IPR) petitions have been filed against the asserted patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB):
    • Amazon.com, Inc. filed IPR2025-00561 against U.S. Patent No. 7,784,058 on January 30, 2025.
    • Google LLC filed IPR2025-00489 and IPR2025-00490 against U.S. Patent No. 7,784,058 on January 31, 2025.
    • Microsoft Corporation filed IPR2025-00850 against U.S. Patent No. 7,519,814.
    • The litigation was also noted in mandatory notices for IPR2025-00591 concerning the '058 patent.

Outcome & Current Posture:

The case was transferred from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. VirtaMove's attempt to reverse this transfer at the Federal Circuit was unsuccessful. The case is currently active in the Northern District of California, likely in the pre-trial phase, with ongoing claim construction proceedings and parallel IPRs at the PTAB. No trial events, verdict, or final judgment have been reported in the publicly available information to date.

In the news

What the press has reported about this case, summarized with links to the source articles.

I'll research press coverage of this case across multiple angles.

Significant developments appear in the record. Let me dig into the press coverage angles.

Press coverage

Coverage of VirtaMove v. Amazon is thin and entirely specialist: I found no Reuters, Bloomberg, Ars Technica, The Verge or other mainstream reporting on the case, and no reporting at all on damages figures (none have been sought publicly in a verdict or settlement context) or on settlement terms. What exists falls into three buckets: Law360's docket-driven litigation reporting, IPWatchdog's appellate/PTAB analysis, and litigation-analytics write-ups. Notably, the press record is now materially ahead of the previously generated sections of this case summary: the trade press reported in October 2026 that the case had effectively been lost at the district court level, and Amazon's IPRs and the WDTX-to-NDCA transfer fight were covered as part of a broader VirtaMove campaign against six major tech companies rather than as an Amazon-specific story.

The single most significant piece of press coverage is Law360 ("Software Patent Claims Invalidated In Google, Amazon Suits," by Theresa Schliep, published 2026-10-14 at 10:38 PM EDT), which reported that "[a] California federal judge found Tuesday that claims in a pair of VirtaMove software patents are invalid," agreeing with Amazon's and Google's arguments "that the claims asserted against them in the infringement litigation are indefinite." Tuesday was 2026-10-13. Law360 treats the ruling as a joint Amazon/Google event rather than an Amazon-only one, which is consistent with the two cases having been related in N.D. Cal.; the article body sits behind Law360's paywall, so only the lede is publicly verifiable, and Law360's teaser does not name the judge. From the public docket rather than the press, the Amazon case landed in N.D. Cal. as No. 5:25-cv-10579 (San Jose), where Judge Beth Labson Freeman handled pretrial matters and the case was later assigned to Judge Noel Wise. It is also worth flagging, because no press outlet appears to have reported it, that VirtaMove's '058 claims were dismissed without prejudice by stipulation in N.D. Cal. in January 2026 (CourtListener docket for 5:25-cv-10579, stipulation for dismissal of claims and counterclaims re '058 patent) — meaning the October 2026 indefiniteness ruling on "a pair of" patents likely involves the '814 patent and a related patent such as the '762 patent, not the '058 patent that the case metadata lists as the sole patent at issue.

The transfer fight drew the most substantive legal-press treatment. IPWatchdog (Steve Brachmann, 2025-09-11) reported that the Federal Circuit issued a pair of orders denying VirtaMove's mandamus petitions, applying "common sense" to reject VirtaMove's use of the Fifth Circuit's 100-mile witness rule, and quoted the court's observation that "[g]iven Google here identified a significant number of potential witnesses residing in the transferee forum, the case for transfer is even stronger than it was in TikTok." IPWatchdog also preserved the quotable district-court language from Judge David Counts' order overruling VirtaMove's objections — that the court "cannot step into the mind of another judge. And it is aware of no technology that would facilitate such a mind meld" — and explained the court's rejection of VirtaMove's arguments on local interest and court congestion, noting that the Amazon panel found VirtaMove "largely reiterated the same arguments it raised in its appeal of venue transfer in the Google case." That framing matters analytically: IPWatchdog cast the Amazon appeal as a follow-on to the Google appeal, the same way Amazon's IPR petitions were argued to be non-follow-on petitions at the PTAB.

Reporting that goes beyond the court record is largely strategic commentary rather than executive statement or market reaction. A Law360 expert-analysis piece by Barry Greenbaum of Olshan Frome Wolosky (2026-08-10) uses the VirtaMove campaign as the hook for a broader argument about Amazon's APEX program, noting that on 2026-07-13 VirtaMove filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to deny review in Google LLC v. VirtaMove Corp., No. 25-1230, which asks whether the USPTO may deny institution under a "settled expectations" framework for older patents and whether such denials are judicially reviewable; Greenbaum argues that if the Court rejects age-based limits on institution, "the PTAB could once again become a more predictable venue for invalidity challenges," with knock-on effects for Amazon sellers. That is advocacy-flavored analysis, not reporting. Separately, the Patsnap litigation page for 7:24-cv-00030 aggregates the case and both patents (US 7,784,058 and US 7,519,814), the accused AWS ECS and End-of-Support Migration Program products, and a dozen IPRs by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle — but it contains errors and should be treated cautiously: it dates filing to 2024-01-26 (the case metadata says 2024-05-03, and UniCourt's docket extract shows a January 2024 complaint with February 2024 service) and states the WDTX case "closed on 8 December 2025" on a "case transferred" basis, which appears to describe the transfer to N.D. Cal. rather than a merits disposition. Finally, the IPWatchdog roundup you flagged — "Other Barks & Bites for Friday, October 23" — exists at that URL and leads with the Taction/Apple supplemental-damages motion, the EUIPO counterfeits announcement and the EPO tech-transfer-office study; I could retrieve only portions of the roundup, so I cannot confirm whether it also carries a VirtaMove item, and I would not assume it does.

Discrepancies to flag against the prior sections: (1) the prior "current posture" description (active in N.D. Cal., pre-trial, no rulings of note) is out of date — Law360 reported on 2026-10-14 that claims in a pair of VirtaMove patents were held invalid as indefinite, a potentially case-dispositive development in both the Amazon and Google matters; (2) the case metadata's single-patent framing ('058) does not match the record, which included the '814 patent and, per the N.D. Cal. sealing order, the '762 patent, with the '058 claims voluntarily dismissed in January 2026; and (3) the Amazon IPR serial numbers in the prior sections should be re-verified — Patsnap lists IPR2025-00563 (Amazon) alongside IPR2025-00561, and the PTAB papers show Amazon filed multiple petitions, including a second, ranked petition, which no press account I found covers.

Sources

Plaintiff representatives

Counsel of record for the plaintiff(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

VirtaMove, Corp. is represented by attorneys from Russ August & Kabat. The following counsel of record have been identified:

  • Reza Mirzaie

    • Role: Lead Counsel
    • Firm: Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles, CA
    • Experience: Mirzaie was lead counsel in AlmondNet, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., a patent infringement case in the Western District of Texas that resulted in a $122 million jury verdict against Amazon.

  • Marc A. Fenster

    • Role: Additional Counsel of Record
    • Firm: Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles, CA
    • Experience: Fenster is also associated with Russ August & Kabat and was listed as additional counsel of record in the VirtaMove v. Amazon case. He was also involved in the AlmondNet, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. case with a reported $122 million jury verdict.

Defendant representatives

Counsel of record for the defendant(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com Services LLC, and Amazon Web Services, Inc. are represented by attorneys from Fenwick & West LLP and The Dacus Firm. This representation aligns with Amazon's counsel in previous patent litigation in the Western District of Texas, such as the AlmondNet, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. case, which also involved one of the current plaintiff's attorneys.

The identified counsel of record for the defendant(s) include:

  • Brian M. Hoffman

    • Role: Lead Counsel
    • Firm: Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain View, CA
    • Experience: Hoffman was lead counsel representing Amazon in AlmondNet, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., a patent infringement case in the Western District of Texas.

  • Deron Dacus

    • Role: Local Counsel
    • Firm: The Dacus Firm, Tyler, TX
    • Experience: Dacus served as local counsel for Amazon in the AlmondNet, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. case in the Western District of Texas.

Amazon is also actively involved in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) related to the '058 patent, indicating a robust defense strategy across different venues.