Juicy Arista Article

Wow I’m a bigger fan of Arista and their CEO after reading this article. Cisco really tried to take her down. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ciscos-feud-with-former-star-ex…

Gclever88,
The link in your post requires a WSJ subscription. Would you please summarize or cut and paste the main “juicy” nuggets from the article? Artista is one of my largest holdings. Thank you in advance for bringing this to the board.

sjo

Basically the article played up that Arista’s CEO who worked with Cisco as a executive was a real superstar and was credited with making Cisco’s switching business a real jewel.

She was frustrated with Cisco’s lack of focus and left to go to Arista.

They quickly started taking business from Cisco and the article talked about how they tried to kill Arista before they could Ipo but couldn’t.

They even took some of their best engineers and quietly created a start up to destroy Arista but just weren’t good enough. When they couldn’t beat them they tried to sue them to stop them.

Great stuff.

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Try this link. It appears to be the same article.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/17/ciscos-feud-w…

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Here’s a trick with WSJ articles behind a paywall…copy/paste the title of the article into a google search. It’ll show up verbatim under a Fox banner.

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That article is fantastic. I encourage anyone interested in Arista to find it. I searched “cisco feud” on Google and it came right up.

After you read it, check out slide #6 here: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4100152-arista-networks-inc…

:slight_smile:

Bear
go ANET!

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I note the board (this one) seems to feel the litigation risk with Cisco is low but what is the worst-case scenario? By what % might it reduce Arista’s freedom to operate as it stands now?

I am interested in any views on how adverse remaining judgements might affect Arista’s overall business and therefore the value of the company, i.e. the downside, knowledge of which must presumably be a prerequisite to investment.

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And what are the chances of Arista successfully countersuing for compensation against a frivolous or bad-faith lawsuit from Cisco?

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I note the board (this one) seems to feel the litigation risk with Cisco is low but what is the worst-case scenario?

This article summarizes the situation well: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/06/05/ptab-overturns-two-cisc…

PTAB declared that the ‘668 patent was invalid, PTAB also invalidated important claims of the ‘577 patent. As a result, Cisco is left without any valid claims remaining which it had originally asserted in its Section 337 patent infringement complaint. (emphasis is mine)

The recent ruling of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) clears the way for Arista to overturn a ruling of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)

Late last month, the ITC is still imposing a ban based on these invalidated patents. In https://www.law360.com/articles/946657/itc-upholds-arista-ba… it was reported the ITC wrote:

“The commission finds that the PTAB’s final written decisions do not constitute a changed circumstance such that the remedial orders should be rescinded,” according to the notice. “The legal status of the claims at issue will not change unless and until the United States Patent and Trademark Office issues a certificate canceling the claims following the exhaustion of all appeals.”

Worst case scenario?
The ITC refuses to overturn its ruling despite the fact that the patents on which that ruling were based are now invalid. Arista is already appealing the ITC decision in Federal court, so I guess it’s possible the court could rule against them, in which case Arista would have to redesign some of their products. Which they’ve already done, but the approval of those workarounds is now being reviewed (https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aqcJwy…)

So, worst case is that the ITC doesn’t back down, the Federal court says ITC can enforce a ban based on invalid patents, and that Arista’s workarounds aren’t good enough.

Seems a stretch to me, but it could happen.

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