New Fortinet Patents May Spell Nasty Trouble For UTM Vendors, Virtualization Vendors, App. Delivery Vendors, Routing/Switching Vendors...

Check out the update below...

Were I in the UTM business, I'd be engaging the reality distortion field and speed-dialing my patent attorneys at this point.

Fortinet has recently had some very interesting patent applications granted by the PTO.

Integrated network and application security, together with virtualization technologies, offer a powerful and synergistic approach for defending against an increasingly dangerous cyber-criminal environment. In combination with its extensive patent-pending applications and patents already granted, Fortinet's newest patents address critical technologies that enable comprehensive network protection:

• U.S. Patent #7,333,430 - Systems and Methods for Passing Network Traffic Data - directed to efficiently processing network traffic data to facilitate policy enforcement, including content scanning, source/destination verification, virus scanning, content detection and intrusion detection;
  
  
• U.S. Patent #7,340,535 - System and Method for Controlling Routing in a Virtual Router System - directed to controlling the routing of network data, and providing efficient configuration of routing functionality and optimized use of available resources by applying functions to data packets in a virtual environment;
  
  
• U.S. Patent #7,376,125 - Service Processing Switch - directed to providing IP services and IP packet processing in a virtual router-based system using IP flow caches, virtual routing engines, virtual services engines and advanced security engines;
  
  
• U.S. Patent # 7,389,358 - Distributed Virtual System to Support Managed, Network-based Services - directed to a virtual routing system, which includes processing elements to manage and optimize IP traffic, useful for service provider switching functions at Internet point-of-presence (POP) locations.

These patents could have some potentially profound impact on vendors who offer "integrated security" by allowing for virtualized application of network security policy.  These patents could easily be enforced outside of the typically-defined UTM offerings, also.

I'm quite certain Cisco and Juniper are taking note as should be anyone in the business of offering virtualized routing/switching combined with security -- that's certainly a broad swath, eh?

On a wider note, I've actually been quite impressed with the IP portfolio that Fortinet has been assembling over the last couple of years.  If you've been paying attention, you will notice (for example) that that they have scooped up much of the remaining CoSine IP as well as recently acquired IPlocks' database security portfolio.

If I were they, the next thing I'd look for (and would have a while ago) is to scoop up a Web Application Firewall/Proxy vendor...

I trust you can figure out why...why not hazard a guess in the comments?

/Hoff

Updated:  It occured to me that this may be much more far-reaching than just UTM vendors, that basically this could affect folks like Crossbeam, Check Point, StillSecure, Cisco, Juniper, Secure Computing, f5...basically anyone who sells a product that mixes the application of security policy with virtualized routing/switching capabilities...

How about those ASA's or FWSMs?  How about those load balancers with VIPs?

Come to mention it, what of VMware?  How about the fact that in combining virtual networking with VMsafe, you've basically got what amounts to coverage by the first two patents:

U.S. Patent #7,333,430 - Systems and Methods for Passing Network Traffic Data - directed to efficiently processing network traffic data to facilitate policy enforcement, including content scanning, source/destination verification, virus scanning, content detection and intrusion detection;

U.S. Patent #7,340,535 - System and Method for Controlling Routing in a Virtual Router System - directed to controlling the routing of network data, and providing efficient configuration of routing functionality and optimized use of available resources by applying functions to data packets in a virtual environment;

Whoopsie.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, I just play one on teh Interwebs.