SUNNYVALE, Calif., August 9, 2005 - Fortinet - the pioneer and market leader of Unified Threat Management and only provider of ASIC-accelerated, network-based multi-threat security systems for real-time network protection - today announced plans to address a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling received on August 8, 2005 regarding a patent infringement complaint filed by Trend Micro. Without interruption to its U.S. operations or customers, Fortinet is accelerating development and delivery of enhanced antivirus software intended to avoid the technology covered in Trend Micro's patent and deliver increased benefits to customers.

The ITC's ruling is limited to the U.S. and affects only the antivirus component of Fortinet's best-in-class security applications suite, which consists of seven dedicated security applications - firewall, VPN, intrusion detection/prevention, antivirus, web filtering, antispam and traffic shaping -- deployable collectively or separately on its FortiGate™ integrated unified threat management platform. More than 70 percent of Fortinet's revenues are derived internationally and the ITC ruling has no affect on Fortinet's international operations.

Of paramount importance, the ITC ruled that Fortinet can continue to provide service and support in a business as usual manner for all U.S. customers, including customers with Fortinet's antivirus functionality. This includes ongoing maintenance releases and antivirus signature updates. Additionally, Fortinet U.S. channel partners can continue to sell their current Fortinet inventory to customers, including the antivirus application, as well as support contracts.

"Fortinet firmly believes we do not infringe on Trend Micro's antivirus patent," said Ken Xie, founder, president and CEO of Fortinet, Inc. "We are committed to ensuring that our U.S. business operates as usual with no impact to customers and partners, and we are confident that our forthcoming antivirus software enhancements will avoid Trend's patent."

Fortinet's antivirus software enhancements will deliver improved security, performance and throughput to customers with no impact to existing network deployments. The software enhancements will be available to customers and partners during the next 60-90 days as part of a normal FortiOS support release. Once these enhancements are deployed, Fortinet expects to return to a "business as usual" mode in the U.S.