MIT Sues Amazon Over Cloud Data Security Patents

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed a lawsuit against Amazon in Boston federal court on Friday, alleging that Amazon Web Services infringes on two university patents regarding data security technology. The university claims that AWS utilizes physical unclonable function technology to generate unique cryptographic keys, an innovation developed by an MIT professor.

The complaint specifies that Amazon employs cloud-security technology from the software company Synopsys that violates these patents, although Synopsys is not a named defendant in the suit. MIT is seeking unspecified monetary damages for the infringement.

This legal action follows a similar patent infringement lawsuit filed by the university against Microsoft in Texas in May, which remains pending. Amazon has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the allegations.