BUSINESS INSIDER
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`ANALYZING THE TOP NEWS STORIES ACROSS THE WEB
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`DEC. 6 2014 10:30 AM
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`Cisco Sues Arista, a Rival Run by Former Cisco
`Employees
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`By Julie Bort
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`Not all is sunny and care-free.
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`Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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`This article originally appeared in Business Insider.
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`Cisco has slapped its upstart rival, Arista Networks with a patent and copyright
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`infringement lawsuit.
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`Cisco filed the suit on Friday in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of
`California, claiming Arista is violating 14 Cisco patents and copying a lot of specific Cisco
`technology. It didn’t say how much money it is seeking in damages.
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`Exhibit 2044
`IPR2016-00309
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`001
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`But this isn’t just another patent complaint where one company tries to shake down another.
`It’s more like a war between a parent and a child. Many of Arista’s leaders and engineers are
`former Cisco employees. The lawsuit documents almost make Cisco sound like a jilted ex:
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`Arista was founded by former Cisco employees, many of whom are named inventors on Cisco’s networking
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`patents. Among others, Arista’s: 1) founders, 2) President and CEO, 3) Chief Development Officer, 4) Chief
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`Technology Officer, 5) Senior Vice President for Customer Engineering, 6) Vice President of Business Alliances,
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`7) former Vice President for Global Operations and Marketing, 8) Vice President of Systems Engineering and
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`Technology Marketing, 9) Vice President of Hardware Engineering, 10) Vice President of Software Engineering,
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`and 11) Vice President of Manufacturing and Platform Engineering all were employed by Cisco prior to joining
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`Arista. Moreover, four out of the seven members of Arista’s Board of Directors were previously employed by
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`Cisco.
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`Cisco wants Arista to stop using the infringing technology, a spokesperson tells Business
`Insider. It wouldn’t mind if Arista is forced into re-doing big chunks of its technology.
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`Both companies make equipment used to build computer networks. Cisco claims that Arista
`is using technology invented when its founders, leaders, and employees worked at Cisco
`according a blog post by General Counsel Mark Chandler. Chandler writes:
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`The heart of our action regards Arista’s deliberate inclusion in its products of 12 discrete and important Cisco
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`features covered by 14 different U.S. patents. All of these features are being used by Cisco currently and in
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`products we ship to our customers. None of the implementations are incorporated in industry standards. They
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`were patented by individuals who worked for Cisco and are now at Arista, or who at Cisco worked with
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`executives who are now at Arista. These Cisco-created features and implementations are incorporated by
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`Arista in their entirety into Arista’s products.
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`Chandler adds that such tactics by Cisco are extremely rare:
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`In the thirteen years I’ve been General Counsel of Cisco, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve
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`initiated suit against a competitor, supplier or customer.
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`Because so many of Arista’s leaders and engineers are former Cisco employees, Arista is
`treated as enemy No. 1 within Cisco—more so than Cisco’s traditional competitors, Juniper
`and HP.
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`Former Cisco employees include Arista’s famous billionaire co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim,
`who co-founded Sun Microsystems and later earned billions by angel investing in Google.
`He also founded and sold a couple of startups, including Granite Systems, a networking
`startup sold to Cisco in 1996. He stuck around at Cisco for seven years after that, leading a
`team that developed one of Cisco’s successful lines of network equipment, (the Catalyst
`4500).
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`Then there’s Arista’s CEO, Jayshree Ullal, who prior to Arista was a 15-year Cisco alum. She
`famously led Cisco’s core switching and networking division, taking over the role after
`Cisco’s star engineer, Mario Mazzola, left to develop a new Cisco product.
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`In one of the funnier examples of the alleged infringement, Cisco’s lawyers contend that
`Arista didn’t just copy some of Cisco’s technology, it also copied the user manual that shows
`people how to use those features, right down to the typos.
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`Cisco
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`Arista sent Business Insider this statement: “We just became aware of the lawsuit and have
`not had an opportunity to evaluate the claims in detail. We will certainly be doing so in the
`coming days. While we have respect for Cisco as a fierce competitor and the dominant
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`player in the market, we are disappointed that they have to resort to litigation rather than
`simply compete with us in products.”
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`And Ullal had this to say, “I am disappointed at Cisco's tactics. Its not the Cisco I knew.”
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`Cisco is asking for a jury trial, but it may never go to court. Patent infringement cases almost
`always lead to a settlement of some kind.
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`This is another event in an endless sequence of drama for Arista. It’s the second incestuous
`litigation for the network equipment company. Its other famous billionaire co-founder,
`David Cheriton, quit Arista and filed a lawsuit last summer on behalf of his other startup,
`OptumSoft, a sister-company/partner with Arista. Arista had a wildly successful IPO this
`year, but was also outed for offering pre-IPO shares to journalists.
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`But Arista is doing really well despite the drama. That’s probably what got Cisco's goat.
`Founded a decade ago, Arista is profitable. It reported an excellent quarter last month, a
`huge beat. Quarterly revenue of $155.5 million was up over 50 percent from the year-ago
`quarter. Profits hit $28.1 million, or 40 cents per diluted share, when analysts were expecting
`28 cents.
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`See Also: The CCP Cracks Down on Zhou Yongkang
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