On Tuesday, March 1, the United States Federal Circuit court refused to review its ruling that reversed a $74 million jury verdict that found Cisco Systems infringed Commil USA LLC’s wireless networking patent. The court denied Commil’s motion for a re-hearing, ruling there was not “substantial evidence” to support the jury’s conclusion that Cisco’s devices infringed Commil’s wireless networking patent.
Commil sued Cisco eight years ago
on a patent covering a method for faster and more reliable handoffs of a mobile
device as it moves throughout a mobile network. The jury in a lower court found
that Commil’s patent was valid and that Cisco was liable for direct
infringement and was ordered to pay $3.7 million in damages. Commil requested
and received a retrial on induced infringement and damages, and the second jury
ruled in favor of Commil on induced infringement and awarded $63.7 million in
damages.
In June 2013, on a Cisco appeal,
the Federal Circuit vacated the award and sent it back to Texas federal court.
This court ruled that Cisco had been wrongly barred from presenting evidence
that it believed the patent was invalid. This prompted Commil’s appeal to the
Supreme Court, which ruled in its favor last May. On remand, the Federal
Circuit finally found now that there was not enough evidence to support the
finding that Cisco’s devices performed a key step claimed in the patent.
With regards to a specific claim,
the Federal Circuit court ruled in the most recent decision that Cisco’s
devices did not perform the “running” step of the asserted claims. The patent
refers to a wireless communication system with at least two Base Stations where
each connection of a mobile unit with a Base Station runs an instance of a
low-level protocol at the Base Station and an instance of a high-level protocol
at the Switch. What this essentially means that is that Cisco’s applications
does not approach the problem the same way outlined in the Commil patent.
Commil is an example of a patent
troll that did not actually make the technology that is described here. In my
opinion, the ultimate and final court decision in favor of Cisco is optimal.
Hi Jay,
ReplyDeleteI found your post to be organized and well thought out. Your explanations of the wireless communication systems was helpful to understand the case further. Here, we see another patent troll with less stake in the game (not producing the product) and seeking multi million dollar damages. Could this be an example of a new precedent that is viewing patent trolls with more scrutiny?
Hey Jay,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very detailed and easy to understand explanation of the case. I think such cases involve patent trolls with no significant contribution to the industries attempting to leech off other firms really raises the question of how much regulation should be placed on them. I'm also quite relieved of how the court decision turned out.