I don’t think that it’s a question of commands. I’m not a patent attorney, nor a tech guy. I don’t know how much Arista has altered the original stuff to get away from the patents. I don’t know how much Bechtolsheim is revered. But from what I’ve read here’s why CSCO is suing them:
All the principals at Arista were working for CSCO when they invented whatever it is that makes Arista special. CSCO, being a staid large behemoth, didn’t want to introduce what these guys had invented because it would disrupt a lot of their existing products. So these guys left CSCO and started their own company. CSCO claims that the patents for the whole Arista concept belongs to them because it was invented at their company. Period!
Maybe that’s a little simplified, but it sounds a lot different than just a few commands — doesn’t it?
Here’s a little about it from an informational article http://seekingalpha.com/article/3122296-cisco-vs-arista-let-…… on Seeking Alpha:
…What is interesting about these cases are Cisco’s allegations that Arista is unlawfully using a number of critical networking technologies that were developed by Arista’s own founders while they worked at Cisco. Specifically, Arista’s founders, Andreas Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton, previously worked at Cisco and are the named inventors on two of the asserted patents - the '853 and the '577 patents…
Cisco’s allegations don’t stop there. It claims that scores of Arista’s employees previously worked at Cisco prior to joining Arista. This includes Arista’s:
1) founders,
2) president and CEO,
3) chief development officer,
4) chief technology officer,
5) senior vice president for customer engineering,
6) vice president of business alliances,
7) former vice president for global operations and marketing,
8) vice president of systems engineering and technology marketing,
9) vice president of hardware engineering,
10) vice president of software engineering, and
11) vice president of manufacturing and platform engineering.
12) Moreover, four out of the seven members of Arista’s Board of Directors were previously employed by Cisco. See Complaint, DCT-5344 at Par. 2.
Why are these allegations potentially damaging to Arista? Because they expose Arista to claims of willful infringement. Under patent law, if infringement is proven to be willful (or intentional), the patent-holder can be entitled to treble damages. Often, the most difficult obstacle to proving willful infringement is proof that the accused infringer actually knew about the patents. In this case, the proof is in the pudding. Arista’s executives and board are filled with people previously employed by Cisco. Moreover, Arista’s founders are named inventors on two of Cisco’s asserted patents. It will be nearly impossible for Arista to deny that it did not know about Cisco’s patents in the course of developing its technology.
Separate from the possibility of trebled damages, Arista’s damages exposure is still significant. Arista was founded in 2004 and launched in 2008. If Cisco prevails on proving infringement, it will be entitled to damages going back six years - almost the entirety of Arista’s existence. (This will depend on the asserted patents, which issued at different times. The youngest patent issued in 2013, which affords only two years of past damages, whereas many of the other patents will afford six years. In any event, most of these patents will not expire anytime soon, and the potential for future damages is significant).
There is another important issue that arises from the fact that Cisco’s patents were, in some cases, invented by Arista’s founders. This issue is assignor estoppel. Under the doctrine of assignor estoppel, a party that assigns his/her patent to another is subsequently estopped from challenging the validity of that patent. Here, Arista executives appear to be named inventors on several of the patents. This may bar Arista from challenging the validity of Cisco’s patents if the doctrine of assignor estoppel is deemed to apply. This could potentially be a big setback for Arista. In most patent cases, an accused infringer (Arista) has two primary avenues of escaping liability - proving it does not infringe the patents, or proving the asserted patents are invalid. If Arista cannot avail itself of proving the patents are potentially invalid, then its chances are defeating Cisco’s claims are substantially weakened…
Now if that doesn’t scare you, I’d like to know what tranquilizer you are using!
Saul