Centripetal Networks v. Cisco Systems

Overview

The inventors and founders of Centripetal are Veterans, one of the categories of people underrepresented in America's patent system, as defined by Congress and embraced by President's Trump and Biden.  Public confidence in our courts and regulatory agencies is diminished when there are different strokes for different folks.  In this case Centripetal faced a federal judge whose wife purchased stock in Cisco. The judge disclosed this conflict and followed all the rules and requirements to cure the issue.  And he ruled against Cisco anyway. Since the 1980s there has been only one court for the entire country where one can appeal a trial court decision in a patent case -- the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or CAFC.  The CAFC found that the trial judge's decision, awarding damages to Centripetal, needed to be overturned, even though there was no evidence that the judge had been prejudiced by his wife's small stock purchase.  Both Cisco and Centripetal stipulated for the record that they agreed.  In parallel the Patent Trial & Appeal Board or PTAB, the invalidity administrative court inside the US Patent & Trademark Office permitted administrative patent judges to rule in cases involving Cisco against Centripetal when that administrative judge actively gained compensation from a lobbying firm working for Cisco.  Veterans who serve our nation and later provide us with their ideas and voluntarily share them with society via the patent system get tossed aside to help a non-Senate confirmed administrative judge keep their side hustle?  The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

The brief filed by Fair Inventing Fund can be viewed here.