Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

United States of America

28.12.2015

Intellectual Property Rights

Cisco found to not have infringed patent

The United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit ruled in favour of Cisco Systems in a patent dispute regarding improvements in wireless networking technology. U.S. Patent No. 6,430,395, owned by Commil USA, relates to a method that enables faster and more reliable handoff of mobile devices when switching from one base station to another. Commil had alleged infringement of its patent by Cisco, which had incorporated it in its wireless networking equipment and sold it to customers. Pursuant jury trial, Commil’s patent had been found valid and damages were awarded therefor. The Court of Appeal though at the first instance of the matter refused to hear Cisco’s non-infringement arguments, on remand from the United States Supreme Court, it accepted Cisco’s submissions. It noted that the Patent comprised a two step process of “dividing” and “running”, whereas Cisco’s system never performed the “running” step, meaning a single copy of the protocol supported all connected devices. Commil was held to have not proven that tracking separate ‘state’ information for each device was the same as “running” for the purposes of the Patent.

Tags : Patent wireless communication handoff reversal

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