McAfee faces legal and financial woes

With books under scrutiny, McAfee is sued over property rights.

As

McAfee

faces up to the likelihood of its financial results for the last five years being overturned following revelations of stock option discrepancies, a lawsuit alleging patent violations is pending.

The rights issue involves unified threat management technology, a patent for which was originally owned by

McAfee

. After legal intervention, the ownership was later granted instead to fellow security developer

DeepNines

, which is suing

McAfee

in an attempt to block sales of gateway appliances using the technology and demanding damages.

Meanwhile,

McAfee

‘s problems with its financial results rumble on, with auditors examining abuses of stock option law going back to 2001. It seems likely that

McAfee

, along with several other firms, will have to restate its figures following recalculation.

Find out more about the financial troubles

here

or

here

. Read a report about the rights suit

here

, and

DeepNines

‘ own announcement

here

.

Posted on 18 August 2006 by

Virus Bulletin