Brocade Awarded Permanent Injunction In Intellectual Property Theft Case

Brocade has announced that a San Jose federal court confirmed a $60 million damages verdict against A10 Networks and entered an order permanently enjoining A10 from infringing on Brocade’s patents involving technologies for Global Server Load Balancing and High Availability. The Court enjoined A10 from “making, using, selling, or offering to sell in the United States, or importing into the United States any AX series application delivery controller that includes features that infringe” on these asserted claims.

Further, A10 has been ordered to “notify all distributors, customers, or third-parties who have ordered, received, or purchased any AX series application delivery controller from A10 or any affiliated entity” about the issuance of this order within 10 business days.

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On Aug. 6, 2012, a jury in the case of Brocade v. A10 Networks found for Brocade on four claims of patent infringement involving technologies for Global Server Load Balancing and High Availability and found that the A10 AX Series line of load balancers infringe on these specific patents. In addition, the jury found A10 liable for:

• Direct copying of proprietary Brocade code used in Brocade’s ServerIron products for use in A10 products.

• Misappropriation of four trade secrets involving techniques used in the Brocade ServerIron products that A10 applied for use in its AX series.

• Unfair competition based on interference with the contract of an engineer while he was employed at Foundry Networks, which Brocade acquired in late 2008.

The Court confirmed all liability findings by the jury against A10 and confirmed the $60 million in damages for copyright infringement. The Court further confirmed that there was sufficient evidence against A10 to award up to another $50 million in lost profits damages on the patent claims. In order to clarify the amount of additional damages that A10 will be liable for, the Court has granted a new trial to determine only the amounts of patent and punitive damages.

“We appreciate the Court’s careful attention to the evidence and its willingness to enforce important intellectual property rights,” said Tyler Wall, Vice President and General Counsel at Brocade. “The jury found A10 guilty of broad-based intellectual property infringement and unfair competition. We are very pleased that this permanent injunction will stop A10 from unlawfully using Brocade’s patents.”