It was only eight weeks before the start of trial when Ruckus Wireless Inc. general counsel Scott Maples realized that his legal team did not have much of a strategy. Then only a year into the job with the Wi-Fi equipment maker, Maples had inherited the case against Netgear Inc., which had asserted patents in U.S. district court in Wilmington after being sued by Ruckus in 2008.
Though Maples says that this wasn’t a bet-the-company case from a monetary standpoint, Ruckus considered the case a must-win. Netgear was the first company licensed to sell Ruckus’ Wi-Fi antenna, but soon after making the deal, Netgear dropped Ruckus for a company that made the equipment at a lesser cost, according to Maples. Ruckus’ founders felt as if they’d been stabbed in the back.
