Cisco's $US3.7m bill for WiFi patent infringement grows to $US63.7m

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 13 April 2011 09:18

Business IT - Technology

A US court has awarded damages against Cisco of $US63.7m for infringing a patent owned by Commil USA covering handover as WiFi devices move between access points, overturning an earlier judgement that set damages at just $US3.7m

The technology was developed by Israeli company Commil which filed US patent number 6,430,395 in 2002. However Commil will gain not a cent from the judgement. The company ceased trading in 2005. It had developed the technology for Bluetooth and when WiFi emerged as the dominant wireless LAN technology did no have sufficient funds to evolve its technology.

The big winner is Commil USA LLC, a company that has no connection with the original. According to Israeli news service, Globes, the CEO Of Commil USA, Jonathan David, bought Commil's intellectual property for a few hundred thousand dollars after he found that the company's patents had been infringed by a number of large telecommunications network equipment companies, including Motorola, Aruba Networks and Cisco.

Commil USA then filed patent infringement lawsuits against Motorola, Cisco and Aruba but settled with Motorola and Aruba out of court.

Commil's win against Cisco is its second. The initial trial ended in May 2010 with the judge awarding damages of only $US3.7m against Cisco. However, according to Mark S Werbner, cofounder of Sayles Werbner, the law firm acting for Commil, "Following the verdict, the judge raised questions about Cisco's inappropriate trial tactics, and whether Commil USA received a fair trial.

Commil secured a second trial arguing that the verdict amount had been unfairly influenced by prejudicial comments made by a Cisco defence attorney before the jury. The court in the second trial took just one week to arrive at the new figure.