On June 25, 2010, Simpson Thacher won dismissal of a patent infringement suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and stay of a second suit brought against the firm's clients, Cisco Systems, Inc. and 3Com Corporation, in the District of Delaware.
In the first action, captioned Enhanced Security Research, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 09-390-JJF, Judge Joseph J. Farnan held that plaintiff ESR lacked Article III standing, because it had granted an investor, Security Research Holdings LLC, the exclusive right to control all licensing, litigation, and enforcement of the patents-in-suit. Judge Farnan found that ESR had transferred "all substantial rights" in the patents-in-suit to SRH, and therefore had not suffered any cognizable injury that could give rise to Article III standing. Because ESR lacked constitutional standing at the time of filing suit, the defect could not be cured by joining SRH to the action. Simpson Thacher drafted the motion papers for Cisco and 3Com, and six other defendants in the case signed on to Simpson Thacher's motion.
In a sister suit, brought jointly by ESR and SRH three months after the first suit was filed, Judge Farnan granted the defendants' motion to stay the litigation pending reexamination of the patents-in-suit. Judge Farnan held that the early stage of the case, the strong likelihood that a stay would simplify the invalidity defenses raised in the action, that all claims of both patents were being reexamined in light of thirty different prior art references and that any prejudice to the plaintiffs was largely speculative, all militated in favor of staying the action.
The STB litigation team includes Hank Gutman, Jeff Ostrow, Noah Leibowitz, Victor Cole, Scott Sukenick, Courtney Welshimer, Kate Dominguez, Shayne Hodge, Jeff Baldwin and Arka Chatterjee, and our invaluable paralegals, Dan O'Neil and Alex Lovo.