Patent Law Practice Center

Innovation Focus: Cisco Pursues Telepresence Technologies

Cisco Systems, Inc. of San Jose, CA, is a corporation that is heavily involved with designing and manufacturing networking equipment along with other information technologies. A new inventory of products for Cisco’s Unified Computing System server business has many speculating that the company is trying to build a stronger base in enterprise server computing solutions. Cisco is seeking to develop systems for modernizing various areas of our country’s infrastructure, including a smart system called Connected Rail with applications for railroad transportation. The corporation has also recently announced an expansion of its partnership with open source developer Red Hat for development of the OpenStack system for deploying private cloud services.

In 2013, the company’s 885 patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office placed it 40th among all patenting entities for that year. Occasionally, we look at applications filed and patents issued for these top patenting companies, and as with any look at Cisco, you will find that research and development operations are still strong this year. Many of Cisco’s recent inventions have focuses on technologies for online meetings and teleconferencing for long-distance business conversations.

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Tech Giants Weigh In On USPTO Post Grant Rule Making Effort

Written by Scott McKeown, Partner at Oblon Spivak, Practice Center Contributor and author of Patents Post Grant blog.

Group 2 Comments on AIA Implementation Due to USPTO Tomorrow

As pointed out last week, the USPTO has been busy fashioning new rules to implement the various provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). Comments on Group 2 Rules, which include Inter Partes Review & Post Grant, must be submitted by November 15th.

Last week, Cisco, Google, Verizon and Intuit submitted joint comments (here) directed solely to the implementation of post grant proceedings, namely, Inter Partes Review (IPR) and Post Grant Review (PGR). Not surprisingly, these tech giants (i.e., targets of serial patent infringement suits) are especially supportive of post grant mechanisms as an alternative to traditional litigation. The Group’s comments encourage the Office to adopt liberal standards for initiation of IPR and PGR, limit the potential estoppel affect of a concluded proceeding, and provide procedural flexibility for petitioners. (more…)

Augme Attack on Yahoo! Streaming Media Patents among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of 10/24/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor…

Last week Augme upped the ante in its patent fight with Yahoo! by requesting reexamination of two Yahoo! streaming media patents (see inter partes Request Nos. ((4) & (5)).  Yahoo! has accused Augme and its partner World Talk Radio of infringing the patents by operating websites and related infrastructure that employ Augme’s “BoomBox” technology.  The accused websites are VoiceAmerica^TM and World Talk Radio^TM Network.

Cisco has requested reexamination of a VirnetX network protocol patent – U.S. Patent No. 7,188,180 – which is one of six VirnetX patents in litigation in the Eastern District of Texas (see inter partes Request No. (2)).  Cisco’s request follows requests from the previous week by Apple regarding two other VirnetX network protocol patents – U.S. Patent Nos. 7,418,504 and 7,921,211.  (more…)

Cisco Attack On VirnetX On Network Security Patent Among Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 7/5/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor…

Late Friday, Cisco requested reexamination of VirnetX’s U.S. Patent No. 6,502,135 entitled “Agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability” (see inter partesRequest No. (6)).  The two companies are parties to an infringement action over the ‘135 patent in the Eastern District of Texas.

Shell Oil and Alcoa also countered infringement allegations by requesting reexamination of the patents-in-suit (see inter partesRequest Nos. (3) & (4)). (more…)