Cisco Systems, the renowned networking hardware firm, has reportedly been ordered to pay over $1.9 billion to Virginia based company, Centripetal Networks, Inc., by a U.S. judge over charges of patent infringement. Centripetal had alleged that the networking hardware giant was copying its cybersecurity patents.

Henry Morgan, U.S. District Judge in Norfolk, Virginia, came down with a verdict, after a non-jury trial that lasted for a month, that Cisco had infringed upon four patents owned by Centripetal Networks. The judge did not find any infringement in the fifth patent.

Morgan, in a 167-page long result, stated that the infringement was not hard to prove after seeing inconsistencies in the evidence Cisco provided. Morgan further added that the technical documents Cisco provided as evidence, many of which were provided by Centripetal itself, proved the case for Virginia based company.

Cisco Systems will now have to pay $1.89 billion to Centripetal Networks, of which $755.8 million would be given for actual damages suffered by the company multiplied by 2.5, to effectively reflect upon the networking hardware giant’s ‘egregious and willful’ conduct, along with prejudgment interest.

Morgan also added that the company did not show any factually reasonable defenses during the trial. The infringing functionality was added to the company’s alleged products after June 20, 2017. This resulted in a drastic rise in company sales which the San Francisco-based company touted in both its marketing and technical documents.

Cisco stated that it was disappointed with the result since it showed a significant amount of proof of invalidity, non-infringement and that the company’s innovations took place much before the patent registrations. The firm now plans to file a petition in the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

The company recorded an immense $11.2 billion net income on approximately $49.3 billion worth of revenue that was generated in the latest fiscal year.

Centripetal Networks is a Virginia-based cybersecurity solutions provider. The company was founded in 2009, and is focused on leveraging firewall hardware and threat intelligence software to protect cyber networks.

Source credit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-systems-centripetal-networks/cisco-is-ordered-to-pay-19-billion-in-us-patent-lawsuit-plans-appeal-idUSKBN26Q2VX