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Brocade and A10 Networks both claimed victories in the latest chapter of Brocade's lawsuit against A10 over alleged patent and copyright infringements.
Brocade on Friday said in a statement that the San Jose Federal Court confirmed a $60 million damages verdict against A10 Networks and granted Brocade a permanent injunction preventing A10 from selling its AX Series line of load balancers that include features infringing on Brocade's patents.
A10, on the other hand, on Friday said in a statement the court granted A10's motion for a new trial on patent damages and rejected Brocade's request for a broad injunction on the basis that it "overreaches."
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Instead, the court agreed to a narrowly tailored injunction against certain products, A10 said.
The ruling comes after the court in August ordered A10 Networks and its CEO Lee Chen to pay punitive damages of $112 million to Brocade after a jury ruled that A10 infringed upon Brocade's intellectual property and engaged in unfair competition.
In addition to finding that A10 infringed on three Brocade patents, the jury also found in favor of Brocade on unfair competition charges, specifically that A10's Chen had directly recruited an engineer to work simultaneously at both A10 and Foundry -- which in 2008 was acquired by Brocade -- thus violating that engineer's Foundry work agreement.
The court, in its Thursday ruling, found that A10 should be enjoined from selling AX series devices that include software and hardware, which the jury in August found infringing on Brocade's patents.
"If, as A10's experts asserted at trial, A10 can design around the infringing features, A10 may continue to sell the AX series without the infringing software, and the public may continue to enjoy the non-infringing features of the product. If A10 cannot design around the infringing features and loses market share as a result, the patented software and hardware are more essential to the product than A10 predicts, and A10 has no entitlement to continue infringement of Brocade's patents only to ensure that A10 remains competitive. Regardless of the outcome, Brocade's exclusive rights to the claims in its patents that it proved A10 infringed are protected," the judge wrote in his ruling.
A Brocade spokesperson told CRN that the judge Thursday confirmed the $60 million in liabilities related to copyright infringement the jury had found in the August judgment despite a move by A10 to vacate that judgment.
