[ Patents ]
It seems CSCO started this stuff.....
....According to federal court papers filed in Delaware, Lucent's lawsuit was provoked by an Oct. 8 letter from Cisco charging Lucent with violating three patents held by a Cisco subsidiary.
Lucent's response isn't surprising, said Kent Richardson, a patent attorney with Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, a Palo Alto, Calif., law firm that specializes in technology companies.
"That's sort of the standard: If someone goes after you, you pull out your portfolio," Richardson said. "That's why you keep your portfolio: for defense ... What is surprising is that given the kind of firepower that Lucent has, that Cisco would go after them."
Cisco, Richardson said, has fewer than 20 patents on record -- less than many other companies its size. Bell Labs, on the other hand, gives Lucent several thousand patents -- including patents that cover much of the technology now used in data networks, Richardson noted. "Lucent probably took its top 100 patents and filtered them down to 8 that they could sue on," he said...
techweb.com |
