Bonum Certa Men Certa

The ITC Administrative Law Judges Continue to Do Bizarre Things About Expiring Patents, Including Cisco-Imposed Embargo on Competition Using Invalid (Rejected by PTAB) Patents

Administrative Law Judge Photos
Reference: Administrative Law Judge Photos



Summary: Once again we are seeing the International Trade Commission giving 'teeth' to patents that aren't really legitimate (or nearly invalid/expired) and serve no purpose other than embargoes, which merely harm customers by limiting choice

Yesterday we found this new little rant from the CCIA. Josh Landau alluded to something from Thursday:

Yesterday, the ITC published the Federal Register notice of the initial determination of an ITC administrative law judge (ALJ). The ALJ determined that the investigation, instituted in January based on a complaint filed last year, shouldn’t go further forward and terminated the case for good cause.

I’m going to totally set aside the merits of the (questionable) patent involved in this case, U.S. 7,930,340. (I will note that the plaintiff has previously been sanctioned by the Federal Circuit for trying to evade word count limits by deleting spaces between words.) I’m going to focus on one thing—expiration.

The patent was filed claiming priority to an application filed August 5, 1996. It was given 577 days of extra patent term due to time in prosecution. That means that it expires 20 years and 577 days after August 5, 1996—on March 6, 2018.

The ITC just forced the defendants to spend several months paying to defend themselves against a patent that everyone involved knew would expire before the ITC acted.


This is truly incredible (and well caught by CCIA). What is the ITC thinking?

"The odd thing is, Cisco is one of the vocal proponents of PTAB."Unfortunately we've found ourselves having to criticise ITC quite a lot over the past year. Even earlier this month. The latest in Arista Networks v Cisco Systems, or Arista challenging patents that Cisco uses in an effort to embargo the competition (through ITC), is now the subject of a new post at Patently-O. As a reminder, ITC (in)famously discarded the judgment of PTAB and persisted with an embargo. To quote Patently-O:

In what is mecoming [sic] a more regular outcome, the Federal Circuit has again vacated a PTAB IPR holding — holding that the USPTO’s panel of Administrative Patent Judges failed to “adequately explain its reasoning on a point that was central to its analysis.”

This time the case involves a PTAB finding for the patentee — that the IPR challenger Arista had not proven obviousness (for several challenged claims of Cisco’s Patent No. 8,051,211). The identified failure was in addressing a particular argument for how the prior art taught the claimed invention.


Does it mean that the embargo carries on (or products modified, i.e. made worse, just to bypass it)? That while guilt has not been established Arista is still being punished (quite severely in fact, sinking the stock)?

"The bottom line is, Cisco seems to enjoy PTAB and support PTAB as long as ITC weirdly enough snubs PTAB and simply maintains an embargo on Cisco's competitors."The odd thing is, Cisco is one of the vocal proponents of PTAB. It even funds PTAB advocacy front groups.

Meanwhile, a Microsoft-connected law firm mentions (as recently as yesterday) some company we never heard of. It's suing Cisco using patents, which might explain why Cisco does support PTAB (it also employed Patent Troll Tracker, who got himself and Cisco sued after the late Ray Niro had unmasked him). To quote:

In a new twist in competitor-based lawsuits involving cloud computing, Centripetal Networks, a relative newcomer, filed a patent lawsuit against industry incumbent and Fortune 100 Company Cisco in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in February 2018. Centripetal has focused its technology on network intelligence and security solutions since its founding in 2009. In its 136 page complaint against the networking solutions giant, Centripetal has alleged infringement of ten patents (out of its total portfolio of fourteen patents).


The bottom line is, Cisco seems to enjoy PTAB and support PTAB as long as ITC weirdly enough snubs PTAB and simply maintains an embargo on Cisco's competitors.

Recent Techrights' Posts

For the First Time in a Month OSI's "OpenSource.org" Blogs and It's Basically a Microsoft Blog Post (Microsoft Controls OSI)
For the first time in a month OSI writes something and it is Microsoft propaganda composed by a Microsoft-salaried operative
Microsoft, Already Borrowing 3 Billion Dollars a Month, is Trying to Cause Many People to Resign
MSN (i.e. Microsoft) and others openly admit it
They Want Activists to Just Barely Walk and Eat, Not Do Activism Anymore
It's sort of like the ending of '1984'
Non-Free JavaScript Programs in Banks Aren't Even the Biggest Problem
Technology was supposed to make life easier; in practice, however, for most of us the opposite effect can be observed
IBM is Obliterating Fedora
"Fedora releases were shipping with an increasing number of bugs on launch day even while I was using it for a several year stretch."
 
Struggling to Cut Costs, Microsoft Continues Shutting Down and Cancelling Stuff This Month
There are August layoffs at Microsoft
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 07, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 07, 2025
Fake 'Linux' Articles, Written by Bots to Take Traffic Away From Real Articles
LLM slop helps replace information with junk or misinformation
When Google's Googlebombing of "Gemini" Was Not Enough; They Now Also Googlebomb "Gemini Space"?
We know GAFAM not only worries about Gemini Protocol but also attempts to 'infiltrate' Geminispace
The Register MS Promotes Microsoft Slop, Assumes All Readers Use Microsoft Windows
Microsoft really dominates the site
Gemini Links 08/08/2025: KDE/Qt Development and What's Missing From "Retro"
Links for the day
Links 07/08/2025: US Punishes India Instead of Russia, Attacks Law Firms to Prevent Scrutiny
Links for the day
Read Us in Geminispace as Well
it's definitely a lot simpler than using a Web browser
Once a Site About BSD and GNU/Linux, and After Months of Silence, LinuxBSDos.com Comes Back Only as a Slopfarm
very frustrating
Links 07/08/2025: Hardware Wars, Mass Recall of Colgate Total Clean Mint, More Microsoft Holes Found
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/08/2025: "Right To Manage" and LoRa Analysis
Links for the day
GAFAM 'Says' is Front Page "News"
The point of journalism is to check and assess facts, not parrot what people and companies merely claim
Links 07/08/2025: Apple Makes False Promises, More Trouble for Microsoft
Links for the day
OSS Didn't Always Mean Open Source Software
"oligarchs all the way down"
The Register MS Does More Microsoft Sez or GitHub Sez (Says) Pieces
60 minutes ago
Quit Perpetuating the Narrative of Gemini Protocol 'Dying' (It's False)
The "whisper campaign" against Gemini Protocol
Criticising Social Control Media in Social Control Media
Many people are quitting Social Control Media (fewer of them announce this in public)
Slopfarms Are Typically Fake News
Slopfarms typically relay falsehoods
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: Replacing a Pocket Watch and Buying in Bulk
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 06, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 06, 2025
August Hits Microsoft Hard: Dead Divisions, Dead Products, Layoffs Again (on Week 1)
Microsoft's debt is soaring
Slopwatch: Slow Day for LLM Slop, Serial Sloppers Still at It in Their Slopfarms
The Web would be better off if those sites went offline
Red Hat Layoffs Expected in 5 Days (Monday)
"They will announce and proceed with the cuts on 08/11."
Links 06/08/2025: Substack in Trouble, Slop Sceptic Shira Perlmutter Seeks Emergency Injunction Pending Appeal
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: Pinephone, Reverse-Engineering, and More
Links for the day
Links 06/08/2025: Faked Values of Slop Companies and Government Bailouts
Links for the day
FOSSY 2025 Conference Safety
The GAFAM-funded FOSSY 2025 is over
Microsoft's Favourite Pay-to-Say 'Analyst' Firm Has Just Collapsed
'Analysts' that helped propel Microsoft to fictional values akin to Ponzi schemes
Ask Google (Jeeves)
What does Google "know", not know, or would rather forget (or embellish)?
They Want You To Talk About Trump or 'The Other Bill' in Relation to Trafficking of Underage Girls for Sexual Exploitation
Just something we wanted to say...
How to Quadruple Your "Goodwill" Value and Grow Your (Wall) Street "Value" From $152B to $4000B Without Producing a Single Successful Product/Service
The longer it goes on for, the bigger the implosion will be
Staying Productive
Two very reputable institutions recently told us they now reckon Microsoft is somehow funding those SLAPPs against us
A Blow for Patent Ambitions of Bill Epsteingate
It's about money
66 Countries Where More People Use iPhones (or iPads) Than Microsoft Windows, According to statCounter Data
a list of countries where iOS now exceeds Windows
Apple's iOS Bigger Than Microsoft Windows in Many Countries
This ought to alarm Microsoft
The Mainstream Media Talks About Spotify Share Price and Price Hikes, Not Its Debt Increasing by About 33% in Just 12 Months
Spotify isn't a company in good shape
New "US Editor for The Register" is 80% Microsoft and Windows
they typically just treat Microsoft like the "Holy Grail" of "IT"
Microsoft is Apparently Sending Gag Orders or NDAs to Staff That Got Laid Off (“We were told not to post on LinkedIn. Not to say anything.”)
The main lies we keep seeing
Richard M. Stallman Has Published AI Memos Since 1980 (45 Years Ago)
Back when the term AI actually meant something
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: BitTorrent and Feedly Bots
Links for the day
Windows All-Time Lows, Android All-Time Highs in Kuwait
New lows for Windows can be found in many countries this month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 05, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 05, 2025