Anyone familiar with the history here and care to comment for a Wired article? I'll pass on more details as they emerge if folks are interested... -james@wired.com

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LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES FILES PATENT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT AGAINST CISCO SYSTEMS; SEEKS DAMAGES AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 1998 MURRAY HILL, N.J. - Lucent Technologies today filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Cisco Systems of San Jose, California.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, the lawsuit charges Cisco with infringing eight patents related to data networking. The patents cover Bell Labs-developed technology associated with routers, frame relay network equipment and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) equipment.

"After numerous attempts to negotiate with Cisco, we were left with no other recourse but to file suit," said Michael Greene, Lucent Technologies' president of Intellectual Property. "We license our patents to many companies in the industry, and our goal is to receive fair value for Bell Labs' discoveries and innovations - innovations that are the result of more than $3 billion in annual investment. We're looking to protect our intellectual property with the appropriate agreements and for proper compensation."

In its suit, Lucent will be seeking damages for Cisco Systems' infringement of its patents and an injunction prohibiting Cisco's use of its patents in the future.

James Glave, Senior Technology Writer Wired News http://www.wired.com (415) 276-8430