Two-year-old case settled between Network-1, six vendors
Cisco may have to pay up to $112 million to a patent acquirer as settlement for a two-year-old infringement case. Cisco and several other vendors have settled a February, 2008 suit involving a PoE patent owned by Network-1 Security Solutions, an acquirer and licensor of intellectual property.
The other defendants were Foundry (Brocade), Extreme, Enterasys, 3Com, Adtran and Netgear. 3Com’s case was dismissed but Network-1 can still go after parent HP. Netgear settled earlier and is now licensing the Network-1 patent.
Under the terms of the settlements, Cisco, Adtran, Enterasys, Extreme and Foundry have licensed Network-1’s Remote Power Patent – U.S. Patent No. 6,218,930 – until March 2020 and agreed to pay the company $32 million upfront. Cisco, meanwhile, will also pay royalties of $8 million per year until 2015, and then $9 million per year until 2020.
The Remote Power Patent relates to, among other things, delivering power over Ethernet links to connected devices like wireless switches and access points, RFID card readers, VoIP telephones and network cameras. The Remote Power Patent was granted by the U.S. Office of Patents and Trademarks on April 17, 2001 and expires on March 7, 2020.
Network-1 owns six patents covering various telecommunications and data networking technologies.
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