Cisco Keeps ‘Secret Sale’ Challenge in Fiber-Optic Patents Case

Cisco Systems Inc. can keep arguing that fiber-optic communication patents held by an Israeli university’s business arm are invalid after a Delaware federal judge held that secret third-party sale of similar technology can qualify as prior art.

Nortel Networks’ 2006 sale of what Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd. called the “secret ‘Next Generation Modem’ system” could still trigger the on-sale bar, Judge Gregory B. Williams said in an opinion issued Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Delaware. He rejected Ramot’s argument that Section 102(b) of the Patent Act excludes nonpublic transactions by third parties.

Ramot ...