Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

The jury found that Cloudflare did not infringe the patent asserted against Cloudflare by patent trolls Sable IP and Sable Networks. "Let's recap how we got here. This case began in March 2021 when Sable Networks and Sable IP filed a complaint against Cloudflare in federal court. Sable asserted around 100 claims spanning four patents against multiple Cloudflare products and features. The patents relied on by Sable were filed around the turn of the century, and they addressed the hardware-based router technology of the day. More specifically, they addressed a particular type of hardware focused on"flows'' composed of multiple linked packets. Sable IP was created as a shell entity in 2020 to monetize the patent portfolio of Sable Networks, which itself was formed in 2006 and allegedly acquired the assets-including the patents-of Caspian Networks, a router company that had shuttered its operations. The inter partes process is an administrative proceeding that involves filing briefs for administrative patent judges at the USPTO to determine if a patent should have been issued in the first place. In May 2022, to avoid responding to one of those petitions-and to avoid the risk that its patent would be canceled altogether-Sable voluntarily canceled all of the claims asserted against Cloudflare under one of its patents. The Western District of Texas has in recent years become a popular venue for patent plaintiffs, as it has a reputation for being a friendly jurisdiction for patent holders. We drilled down into Sable's twenty-year old patent, explaining the many reasons why the patent does not describe anything that Cloudflare actually does.