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Brocade is also seeking an additional $50 million more in lost profits and royalties from patent infringement, the Brocade spokesperson said.
Brocade considers the ruling a decisive victory for the company, the spokesperson said.
Greg Straughn, CFO of A10, said his company was happy with parts of the ruling, and he expects more rulings in favor of A10 going forward.
Because of the narrowness of the Thursday court ruling, A10 will see no disruption in business, Straughn said. "We had arranged for contingencies," he said. "We've completed workarounds and are ready to ship on Monday."
Those workarounds in the products are transparent to users in terms of features, functions and performance, Straughn said. "If we didn't tell [the users], they wouldn't know," he said. "But we'll tell them."
A10 is also continuing to appeal the infringements, Straughn said. One basis for the appeal stems from A10's filing with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office to have the Brocade patents in question declared invalid.
While the USPTO found those patents to indeed be invalid because they were overly broad and did not reflect prior art, A10 was not allowed to use that finding in last year's jury trial, Straughn said.
The Brocade spokesperson, in an emailed statement to CRN about the USPTO ruling, wrote that, according to Brocade's legal experts, Brocade is not sure the basis of A10's claims with regards to the patent re-examination process.
"That process is on-going and is expected to take a long time to resolve, months if not years. In fact, in the six reexamination proceedings going on now, the US Patent and Trademark Office has affirmed the validity of all claims of two Brocade patents. The remaining four reexaminations are still pending and the PTO has not made any final determinations. Further, and perhaps most importantly, the court has already rejected motions by A10 to use the patent reexamination process to stop the permanent injunction, which the court awarded Brocade yesterday."
As far as last year's jury ruling that A10 interfered with the contract of the engineer who worked at both A10 and Foundry, Straughn said the jury had ruled in Brocade's favor and awarded it $1 in damages and $1 million in punitive damages. However, Straughn said, the judge Thursday threw out the $1 million in punitive damages. The engineer in question was a contract worker, Straughn said.
PUBLISHED JAN. 11, 2013
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