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Lomin Security started work on a host defense system this past fall. This work was stopped in short order due to the legal case between Trend Micro and Barracuda networks.
Lomin Security is a commercial developer of OSSIM products and supporting toolsets. The work this past summer focused on building a windows host based defense system keying around OSSIM. The amount of work is significant. Work stopped in December when it was discovered that we were liable to extortion for our work.
Trend Micro sued Barracuda Networks in November of 2007. This lawsuit is based upon Trend Micro's anti-virus patent (see U.S. Patent No. 5623600). Barracuda Networks uses ClamAV. ClamAV is an open source anti-virus solution currently owned by Sourcefire (read article). Trend Micro's claim is that all anti-virus programs use their patent.
Arguably, their patent is an aggrandized regular expression matching system. There is plenty of prior art for that type of work. The application toward security problems is neither innovative, nor is it seemingly patentable in that context.
Troublesome more, is the lack of clarity on whether or not licensing McAfee or Symantec solutions protects licenses. Lomin Security would pay a hefty price to license those technologies. Already those two vendors pay Trend Micro a royalty to use the patent. It is clear that other AV vendors cannot provide such protection. Kaspersky, Panda, and other's provide no indemnification clauses in their OEM contracts.
