Centripetal Networks Technologies Involved In Lawsuit
A federal court ordered Cisco Systems to pay $1.9 billion for infringing on four patents belonging to cybersecurity startup Centripetal Networks after a 22-day bench trial conducted by videoconferencing.
San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco vowed to appeal the lawsuit filed by the startup in February 2018.
“We are disappointed with the trial court’s decision given the substantial evidence of non-infringement, invalidity and that Cisco’s innovations predate the patents by many years,” a Cisco spokesperson said in a statement to CRN. “We look forward to the Federal Circuit’s review on appeal.”
Centripetal Networks, based in Herndon, Va., sued Cisco on claims the networking giant incorporated its network protection technology into its popular network switches and routers and the monitoring offerings that analyze their data.
Cisco must also pay Centripetal Networks a 10 percent royalty on some of its products over the next five years, with that percentage dropping to 5 percent for the subsequent three years.
Centripetal Networks, which developed its technology partly funded by Department of Homeland Security Grants, alleged it lost government contracts because of the patent violations.
