Symantec announced:

Symantec today announced that it was awarded $21 million in damages against a large network of distributors selling counterfeit Symantec software.

The judgments were handed down by the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, CA in favor of Symantec against ANYI, SILI Inc., Mark Ma, Mike Lee, John Zhang, Yee Sha, and related defendants.

The suit was filed about a year ago and the infamous Mark Ma was arrested in July as part of the Summer Solstice sweep conducted by the FBI and the People’s Security Bureau (PSB).

Symantec is very excited:

“Our customers are the real winners as a result of this case,” said Scott Minden, director, Symantec Legal department. “A judgment like this is a crippling blow against these particular syndicates and will drive them even further underground, making it more difficult for them to sell directly to unsuspecting users. It complicates their ability to operate behind the guise as legitimate businesses.”

The defendants were selling pirated copies of Symantec products through Ebay and “other web sites”. Interestingly Symantec accused them of “imitating” Symantec products, whatever that means.

In any case, Symantec probably will never see that money. Computer Reseller News reports:

The US District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles issued a default judgment in favor of Symantec against ANYI, SILI, Mark Ma, Mike Lee, John Zhang, Yee Sha, and other related defendants when they “failed to plead or otherwise defend” against charges that included trademark and copyright infringement, fraud, unfair competition and false advertising. Symantec officials said that the defendants appeared to have left the country.

…Having this judgment gives us a very effective means of ensuring these folks don’t come back to the United States,” said Minden

Symantec got little more than a moral victory out of this. Suing and winning a similar lawsuit in China would really be something to crow about.

ShareThis