Arista Files Antitrust Charges Against Cisco
26 January 2016 - 8:20AM
Dow Jones News
Arista Networks Inc. on Monday filed antitrust charges against
Cisco Systems Inc., escalating a legal battle that began when Cisco
accused the smaller networking-equipment company of infringing its
patents and copyrights.
The new allegations, part of Arista's response to Cisco's
December 2014 lawsuit, focus largely on the way Cisco's widely used
switching and routing devices are programmed.
Arista and other hardware makers emulate portions of programming
instructions used by Cisco, which are issued using what the
industry calls a command-line interface, or CLI. Cisco's suit
alleged that Arista violated its copyrights by doing so.
In the new counterclaims, Arista contends that Cisco engaged in
a kind of bait-and-switch gambit. First, the networking giant
permitted rivals to use what it called an "industry-standard"
feature. Then, after competitors and customers were locked into
using the technology, Cisco began asserting copyright protection
over the technology, Arista said.
"This litigation is not about protecting copyrightable
expression in commonly used CLI commands," Arista stated, in court
papers filed Monday in federal court in San Jose, Calif. "Rather,
this litigation is an effort to debilitate a company that is
disrupting Cisco's long-standing dominant position in this market
with better technology."
Besides the interface issue, Arista alleged that Cisco illegally
raised the price of its support services to customers who used a
mix of Cisco hardware and competing products.
The Arista counterclaims come two days before the U.S.
International Trade Commission is scheduled to rule on Cisco's
request to bar imports of Arista products at issue in patent claims
that Cisco filed with the agency, in addition to its claims in
federal court.
"Arista's filing of bogus antitrust claims today is not
accidental or a coincidence," said Mark Chandler, Cisco's senior
vice president and general counsel. "It is a smokescreen to divert
attention from the important ruling expected from the International
Trade Commission later this week."
Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., has long been the largest
provider of equipment used to connect computers together and to the
Internet. Arista, founded in 2004, has built a sizable niche in
switching systems. The company, whose top executives worked
previously at Cisco, went public in 2014 and reached a market
valuation of more than $4 billion.
Unlike many large tech companies, Cisco mostly has shied away
from seeking royalties on its many patents or filing suits against
competitors. But the company has said Arista's copying of its
intellectual property was so egregious that it had to take
action.
Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 25, 2016 16:05 ET (21:05 GMT)
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