Arista Networks To Pay Cisco $400 Million To Dismiss All Patent Lawsuits

Mark Haranas

August 06, 2018, 11:08 AM EDT

After years of back-and-forth contentious arguments revolving around several patent infringement lawsuits Cisco Systems filed against Arista Networks, the networking rivals appear to have reached an agreement to dismiss all lawsuits.

Arista has entered into a binding agreement with Cisco in which Arista will pay Cisco $400 million by Aug. 20, 2018, to dismiss all pending district court and U.S. International Trade Commission lawsuits, according to an Arista filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 6.

"Cisco will grant [Arista] a release for all claims of infringement with respect to the patent infringement allegations against [Arista] in the pending litigation," said the SEC filing, signed by Marc Taxay, senior vice president and general counsel for Arista. "[Arista] will grant Cisco a release from all past antitrust claims. These mutual releases will extend to the Company’s and Cisco’s customers, contract manufacturers, and partners."

[Related: Arista Networks Notches Victory In Patent Battle With Cisco]

Furthermore, both companies have agreed to a five-year "stand-down period" as to any utility patent infringement claims either may have against features currently implemented in each other's products and services, with some carve-outs for products stemming from acquired companies, according to the SEC filing.

Cisco and Arista also agreed to a three-year dispute resolution process for allegations by either party against new and/or modified features in the other party’s products, according to the filing.

The dispute dates back to December 2014, when Cisco filed several lawsuits alleging Arista infringed on multiple Cisco patents, including patents for access control list processing and control plane security and flow management.