Parity Networks, LLC v. Ericsson, Inc.

Parity Networks LLC has doubled the number of active suits in the campaign that it began back in November 2016, adding Central District of California cases against EdgeCore (8:20-cv-00699), Moxa (8:20-cv-00698), and Unizyx (ZyXEL) (8:20-cv-00697). Those suits join ongoing litigation in cases brought earlier this year against Aviat Networks (6:20-cv-00057), D-Link (6:20-cv-00093), and Mellanox Technologies (6:20-cv-00051) in the Western District of Texas. The asserted patents, asserted in overlapping sets, broadly concern various aspects of network traffic management, with infringement allegations aimed at the defendants’ switch products.

Parity Networks LLC has filed suit against Dell (EMC) (6:19-cv-00550) in the Western District of Texas over the provision of certain networking hardware and software, including the Dell EMC PowerSwitch series network switches and the “Dell EMC Networking OS10” network hardware operating system. This new suit in a campaign that began with late 2016 cases filed against Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent) and Juniper Networks follows by several days the dismissal with prejudice of a case against Palo Alto Networks. The four patents-in-suit, as well as over a dozen asserted throughout the campaign, generally relate to various aspects of network traffic management.

NPE Parity Networks LLC has recently beaten back motions to dismiss its two March 2019 cases in the Western District of Texas against Cisco for pleading inadequacies. In a single order dated on July 26 and entered on the docket of both cases, District Judge Alan D. Albright ruled that Parity’s pleading with respect to direct infringement, indirect infringement, and willful infringement are all sufficiently adequate to survive an early challenge. In response, Cisco promptly filed answers to the two live complaints against it—and Parity Networks filed a third complaint, accusing Cisco (6:19-cv-00458) of infringing three more network traffic management patents from its portfolio, these three new to litigation. Cisco is again accused of infringement through the provision of an overlapping set of network hardware operating systems (Cisco IOS, Cisco IOS XR, Cisco IOS XE, and Cisco NX-OS) offering various network traffic management features as well as certain routers, including, in the new complaint, Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS) routers.

Parity Networks LLC has added two Western District of Texas suits against Cisco (6:19-cv-00207, 6:19-cv-00209) to its network traffic management campaign. In the first case, the NPE asserts three patents for the first time, together with the only patent familiar to the litigation yet to be challenged before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). All four patents at issue in the second case have been previously asserted and challenged in a petition for inter partes review (IPR). Cisco’s accused products include various network hardware operating systems (Cisco IOS, Cisco IOS XR, Cisco IOS XE, and Cisco NX-OS) offering various network traffic management features as well as switches and/or routers running that software.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had an eventful April, capped by two US Supreme Court decisions addressing inter partes review (IPR). While the Court found IPR constitutional in Oil States Energy Services, in its companion decision in SAS Institute, the Court also barred the PTAB’s practice of instituting trial as to a subset of the challenged claims (partial institution decisions). As a result, since those April 24 opinions, the PTAB has begun to institute trial for all challenged claims for IPR petitions where the petitioner is likely to prevail as to at least one claim (and for all petitioned grounds, a practice not required by SAS Institute). Among the affected IPRs instituted in late April were two against Lone Star Silicon Innovations LLC, while the PTAB saw IPR petitions filed in April against Oyster Optics, LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited. The Board also issued final decisions throughout April in IPRs against ChriMar Systems, Inc.; Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd.; Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg; Skky, Inc.; and Uniloc.

Parity Networks LLC has filed suit against HP Enterprise (HPE) (6:17-cv-00683), asserting three network traffic management patents already at issue against each previous defendant in the campaign—Ericsson, Huawei, Juniper Networks, and Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent)—while asserting three additional patents not involved in those earlier cases. With this new case, Parity has now brought 12 of the over five dozen, former Pluris patents received by September 2016 assignment into the campaign. The NPE’s infringement allegations target routine operations of certain HPE- or HP-branded switches and routers (e.g., performing Network Address Translation, filtering packets, multicasting, etc.)

Parity Networks LLC has filed suit against Ericsson (6:17-cv-00526), asserting seven of the nine network traffic management patents at issue in a case that the NPE filed against Juniper Networks at the end of last month. Huawei and Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent) are the other defendants in this campaign; Huawei has answered Parity’s complaint, while the case against Alcatel-Lucent was dismissed with prejudice, also on August 31. Networking devices are the accused products in the campaign, with the NPE targeting various features of Ericsson’s SmartEdge family of routers.

Last December, Parity Networks LLC added a second case to its sole litigation campaign, filing suit against Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent) one month after it sued Huawei. The case against Nokia was dismissed with prejudice on August 31; that same day, Parity filed a complaint against Juniper Networks (6:17-cv-00495), asserting nine network traffic management patents, including the six asserted against Huawei and the six asserted against Nokia. The new complaint targets a range of networking devices, including Juniper’s EX Series, MX Series, PTX Series, and SRX Series routers and switches.

Parity Networks LLC has added Nokia (6:16-cv-01367) to its sole litigation campaign, less than a month after filing its first litigation against Huawei (6:16-cv-01306). The Texas-based NPE accuses Nokia of infringing six patents (6,252,848; 6,553,005; 6,738,378; 6,763,394; 7,002,958; 7,107,352) generally related to network traffic management through enterprise routers and software, including the 7750 SR router and the Service Router Operating System (SROS) utilized for that device. Parity’s complaint identifies the allegedly infringing features from these products for each asserted patent, including ingress ports “configured to receive packets from multiple ingress flows” (the ‘848 patent), certain input/output modules (the ‘005 and ‘378 patents), the use of access control lists (ACLs) for packet filtering/dropping (the ‘394 and ‘352 patents), and the use of Multipath Label Switching (MPLS) for packet routing (the ‘958 patent).

Texas-based NPE Parity Networks LLC has filed its first litigation, asserting six patents (6,252,848; 6,738,378; 6,763,394; 7,002,958; 7,103,046; 7,107,352) generally related to network traffic management against Huawei (6:16-cv-01306). The company is accused of infringement through the provision of enterprise network routers that utilize Multipath Label Switching (MPLS), a technology for routing data packets using shorter “labels” rather than longer network addresses. Also at issue are various Huawei gigabit Ethernet switches that include certain traffic management features and processors.