Malwarebytes Wins Dismissal of Enigma Lawsuit in Final Ruling
Malwarebytes, a global leader in cyberprotection, is pleased to announce that it obtained full dismissal of litigation brought by Enigma Software Group USA LLC in the Northern District of California.
The District Court dismissed all of Enigma’s claims against Malwarebytes. The Court rejected Enigma’s allegations that “Malwarebytes’ alleged labels are verifiably false rather than opinions,” noting that Enigma’s “allegations ignore that users of Malwarebytes are aware of why it opines that a given software program may be a potentially unwanted program based on Malwarebytes’ disclosed criteria and can choose to quarantine or un-quarantine the detected program.”
Malwarebytes’ outside counsel, Moez Kaba of Hueston Hennigan, explained, “The court’s ruling validates the right of cybersecurity firms to identify potentially unwanted programs and recognizes the rights of users to choose whether or not to enable those programs on their devices.”
“We believe that every individual has the right to choose what programs are running on their devices. Our victory in court upholds the importance of user choice,” said Edward Brown, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Malwarebytes. “Malwarebytes is proud of its efforts to protect its customers and will not kowtow to vexatious or harassing litigation.”
In addition to dismissing Enigma’s Lanham Act and statutory claims, the Court also rejected Enigma’s tortious interference claims, finding that Enigma “fails to adequately plead that Malwarebytes engaged in any independently wrongful act which interfered with a specific contractual obligation under its at-will agreements with users.” In reaching its decision, the District Court took notice of Enigma’s extensive history of threatening legal action against those who expressed negative opinions of Enigma, noting that such history was relevant to whether Malwarebytes had an “‘objective or good faith’ basis to believe Enigma software was a potential threat.”
Determining that Enigma could not save its claims, the District Court dismissed Enigma’s entire complaint with prejudice.
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