Litigation Daily named Mark Fleming “Litigator of the Week” in recognition of his historic Federal Circuit victory for Cisco Systems in its high-stakes patent dispute with Centripetal Networks.
On June 23, 2022, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a patent infringement win for Centripetal that had resulted in more than $2.75 billion in damages and royalties. The largest patent judgment in history when it occurred in 2020, it was reversed after the circuit agreed with Cisco's argument that the trial court judge failed to properly divest assets upon discovering that his wife held shares of Cisco stock.
In the Q&A feature accompanying the Litigator of the Week recognition, Fleming discussed the important contributions from members of the WilmerHale team whose work led to the successful appeal. They included Tom Sprankling, Heath Brooks, Annaleigh Curtis, Courtney Merrill, Sofie Brooks, Bill Lee, Tom Saunders and Arthur Gajarsa.
While much of the preparation for the appeal was done remotely because of the pandemic, the appeal was argued in person. For Fleming, that was its own sort of victory after in-person courtroom arguments were not possible for so long.