Jury Delivers Defense Win for Juniper Networks in Patent Row

12.2018

On December 14, 2018, Irell & Manella LLP successfully defended Juniper Networks Inc. against a patent infringement lawsuit, convincing a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that Juniper did not infringe a malware detection patent held by Finjan Inc.

Finjan asserted seven patents against Juniper as part of the litigation, which involved complex matters of computer science. The judge ordered each party to select the patent claim they felt was the strongest and move for early summary judgment on that claim. Juniper prevailed on summary judgment for the claim it selected, and defeated Finjan’s summary judgment motion – setting up the trial on what Finjan had selected as its strongest claim.

During the trial, Irell persuaded the court that Finjan, which sought $60 million in damages, had not presented sufficient evidence to support a damages claim. The 8-member jury delivered a unanimous finding of non-infringement for Juniper.

Five other patents remain unresolved, as well as other claims in the first two patents. Led by Jonathan Kagan and Rebecca Carson, the Irell trial team also included Alan Heinrich.