Cisco Systems Inc. today formally ended an intellectual property fight against China's Huawei Technologies Co. and its subsidiaries.
"The completion of this lawsuit marks a victory for the protection of intellectual property rights," Mark Chandler, vice president and general counsel for Cisco, said in a statement.
Chandler said Cisco could formally end the lawsuit, first brought in January 2003, because Huawei agreed to change its command line interface, user manuals, help screens and portions of its source code in some of its products. The move came after a third-party review of Huawei's products and after Huawei discontinued sales of certain products and agreed to offer only new, modified products, Cisco said.
All of the parties agreed on the third-party review last September, but today's action in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas formally completes the process.
3Com Corp., which has a joint venture with Huawei, issued a statement welcoming the news.
The original lawsuit alleged that Huawei's Quidway routers and switches infringed on Cisco's intellectual property (see story).