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Antivirus Software Enhancements Expected to Avoid Trend Micro Patent
SUNNYVALE, Calif., August 9, 2005 - Fortinet - the
pioneer and market leader of Unified Threat Management and
only provider of ASIC-accelerated, network-based multi-threat security systems for
real-time network protection - today announced plans to address
a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling received
on August 8, 2005 regarding a patent infringement complaint
filed by Trend Micro. Without interruption to its U.S. operations
or customers, Fortinet is accelerating development and delivery
of enhanced antivirus software intended to avoid the technology
covered in Trend Micro's patent and deliver increased benefits
to customers.
The ITC's ruling is limited to the U.S. and affects only the antivirus component of Fortinet's best-in-class security applications suite, which consists of seven dedicated security applications - firewall, VPN, intrusion detection/prevention, antivirus, web filtering, antispam and traffic shaping -- deployable collectively or separately on its FortiGate™ integrated unified threat management platform. More than 70 percent of Fortinet's revenues are derived internationally and the ITC ruling has no affect on Fortinet's international operations.
Of paramount importance, the ITC ruled that Fortinet can continue to provide service and support in a business as usual manner for all U.S. customers, including customers with Fortinet's antivirus functionality. This includes ongoing maintenance releases and antivirus signature updates. Additionally, Fortinet U.S. channel partners can continue to sell their current Fortinet inventory to customers, including the antivirus application, as well as support contracts.
"Fortinet firmly believes we do not infringe on Trend Micro's antivirus patent," said Ken Xie, founder, president and CEO of Fortinet, Inc. "We are committed to ensuring that our U.S. business operates as usual with no impact to customers and partners, and we are confident that our forthcoming antivirus software enhancements will avoid Trend's patent."
Fortinet's antivirus software enhancements will deliver improved security, performance and throughput to customers with no impact to existing network deployments. The software enhancements will be available to customers and partners during the next 60-90 days as part of a normal FortiOS support release. Once these enhancements are deployed, Fortinet expects to return to a "business as usual" mode in the U.S.
About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet is the confirmed leader of the Unified Threat Management
market. The company's award-winning
FortiGate™ series of ASIC-accelerated multi-threat
security systems, winner of the 2004 Security Product of the
Year Award from Network Computing Magazine and the 2003 Networking
Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year, are the new
generation of real-time network protection systems. They detect
and eliminate the most damaging, content-based threats from
e-mail and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions,
inappropriate Web content and more in real time - without
degrading network performance. FortiGate systems are the only
security products that are quadruple-certified by the ICSA
(antivirus, firewall, IPSec, NIDS), and deliver a full range
of network-level and application-level services in integrated,
easily managed platforms. Named to the Red Herring Top 100
Private Companies, Fortinet is privately held and based in
Sunnyvale, California.
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