Cisco’s lawsuit- a ploy to keep Huawei out of US

CHICAGO: Huawei, China's largest telecommunications equipment maker, asked the court to deny Cisco's request for a preliminary injunction against it in a lawsuit brought by Cisco in January. In court documents filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Huawei said there is "no legal support for the broad injunctive relief sought by Cisco, which reaches far beyond the scope of alleged infringement."

"In effect, the proposed injunction would prohibit Huawei from re-entering the U.S. market, regardless of whether its products infringe Cisco's intellectual property," according to Huawei's document.

"Cisco should not be permitted to use the courts to erect further barriers to competition," Huawei added. A representative for Cisco, the No. 1 network equipment maker, was not immediately available for comment. Huawei has denied it violated Cisco's patents or copied its software. Cisco, based in San Jose, California, filed its lawsuit in January, alleging Huawei copied its intellectual property, including its source code, as well as documents and other copyrighted materials, and infringed several company patents.

Source code, the underlying blueprint of computer software, determines how programs work. Companies zealously guard that code because they consider it the lifeblood of their business.

Cisco is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop privately held Huawei and its U.S. subsidiaries from copying Cisco's intellectual property and distributing Huawei's products with the disputed software. Huawei stopped U.S. shipments in January before the lawsuit was filed, and recalled most of the products it had distributed for customer testing

© Reuters