When Luke Hosinski, president of Infra-Comm, took the $40 billion networking giant to court charging that Cisco had violated terms of its reseller agreement, few could have guessed at the widespread impact the verdict would have. In a true David vs. Goliath tale, Infra-Comm, a small solution provider, won its case and was awarded $6.4 million in damages by the jury (Cisco later agreed not to appeal and settled the lawsuit for $5.5 million). But the victory itself is not the end of the story: The judge in the case also ruled that several clauses in the partner contract were unconscionable, or extremely one-sided. The result? Cisco as well as other vendors across the industry will need to rethink the language of their partner contracts.
