Aprisma, maker of the Spectrum family of network management tools, filed a complaint on Dec. 24 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire alleging that SMARTS' InCharge products infringe on five Aprisma patents.

The patents, issued to Aprisma between 1995 and 2002, relate to fault isolation, infrastructure modeling and alarm correlation, according to the suit.

The complaint seeks an injunction against SMARTS as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

SMARTS, White Plains, N.Y., on Wednesday filed a suit in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, alleging that the Aprisma patents in question are invalid.

"In particular, SMARTS is confident that prior art developed by SMARTS founders will result in findings of invalidity of Aprisma's patents," SMARTS said in a statement.

Aprisma, Portsmouth, operated as a unit of network equipment vendor Enterasys Networks until Enterasys sold it last August to acquisition firm Gores Technology Group.