Feb 13, 2024 12:00:00

Cloudflare is sued by ``patent ground'' but wins back with patent invalidation ruling

Cloudflare reported on its blog that it had won the battle against Sable , a

patent troll company that filed a patent infringement lawsuit for compensation. Not only did they win the case, but they also succeeded in reducing their ability to sue other companies by invalidating three of their patents.

Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-defeats-patent-troll-sable-at-trial

Cloudflare has been in a legal battle with similar patent troll company Blackbird from 2017 to 2019, and in this battle also invalidated Blackbird's patents. Blackbird has since gone out of business.

CloudFlare wins in court battle against patent troll who files patent infringement suit for compensation - GIGAZINE

In the legal battle with Blackbird, a project called ``Project Jengo'' was launched to collect evidence showing that the other party's patents were already widely used ``prior art.'' ) and collected evidence. It is said that this project was also useful in this fight against Sable.

Sable filed the lawsuit in March 2021, alleging 100 infringements related to four patents against multiple Cloudflare products. Like many patent trolls, Sable is a company that does not develop or sell its own products, but instead 'monets' its patents by suing other companies for infringing them. did.

In addition to Cloudflare, Sable is suing many other companies, including Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, SonicWall, and Juniper Networks. Actual legal battles would cost millions of dollars (hundreds of millions of yen), so companies other than Cloudflare chose to settle without going to trial.

Cloudflare leveraged its experience in a legal battle with Blackbird to launch the second round of Project Jengo with a total bounty of $100,000 (approximately 15 million yen). When Sable filed a petition for inter partes review seeking invalidation of the patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) based on evidence gathered from Project Jengo participants, Sable filed a petition for patent invalidation, fearing that the patent would be completely revoked. All lawsuits related to the patent have been withdrawn.

One more patent was invalidated in January 2023, but Sable did not give up. After that, by filing a complaint with the USPTO and the court, the number of patent infringements subject to litigation will be increased from the original '100 cases related to four patents' to '5 cases related to two patents' in December 2023. succeeded in reducing it to The lawsuit now focuses on one infringement after a pretrial conference on December 13, 2023 granted

summary judgment in Cloudflare's favor on one additional patent.

Then, on February 8, 2024, lawyers for Cloudflare and Sable made closing arguments in front of the jury in court. We take a deep dive into Sable's 20-year-old patent and explain that the patent says nothing about what Cloudflare actually does, while also explaining that the patent system is not meant to generate profits from litigation like Sable did. , and emphasized that it exists to promote innovation.

After less than two hours of deliberation, the jury ruled not only that Cloudflare had not infringed the patent, but also that Sable's patent was invalid.

In the future, he plans to share insights gained through Project Jengo's award announcements and trials with patent trolls.