Apple settles major Corellium lawsuit over iOS virtualization

The terms were confidential, but Corellium says it is still selling virtual iOS devices...

What you need to know

• Apple has agreed to settle a major lawsuit with Corellium.
• It had sued the company over its virtual iOS software, which it says is a breach of copyright.
• The terms of the settlement are unknown.

Apple has settled a lawsuit with Corellium over claims the company breached copyright by selling virtual iOS devices for iPhone software testing.

As noted by The Washington Post:

Apple settled its federal lawsuit Tuesday against Corellium, the maker of tools that allow security researchers to find software flaws in iPhones, according to court records.

The case, which became a lightning rod in the security industry, had been scheduled to go to trial in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in federal court on Aug. 16.

The suit was filed in 2019 and claimed that Corellium's virtual iOS software, which let researchers test on a virtual iOS device rather than a physical iPhone, breached copyright.

Court records indicate that a settlement conference was held on Tuesday, however, the terms of the settlement are unknown.

According to the report, Correlium says it is still selling the virtual iOS devices at the heart of the dispute. From the original suit:

This is a straightforward case of infringement of highly valuable copyrighted works. Corellium's business is based entirely on commercializing the illegal replication of the copyrighted operating system and applications that run on Apple's iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices. The product Corellium offers is a "virtual" version of Apple mobile hardware products, accessible to anyone with a web browser. Specifically, Corellium serves up what it touts as a perfect digital facsimile of a broad range of Apple's market-leading devices—recreating with fastidious attention to detail not just the way the operating system and applications appear visually to bona fide purchasers, but also the underlying computer code. Corellium does so with no license or permission from Apple.