Defendant
3 cases as defendant.
Company overview. Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd. ("Ramot") is the technology-transfer company and commercial arm of Tel Aviv University (TAU), Israel's largest university. It is headquartered in Tel Aviv (PO Box 39296). Ramot's own material notes TAU was founded in 1956; business databases (Crunchbase, Crustdata) list Ramot's founding as 1973. It is a non-public, wholly owned affiliate of the university and is not exchange-traded. Crustdata estimates roughly 56 employees; no revenue figures are publicly disclosed, so none are stated here.
Products / services / operations. Ramot identifies, patents, protects and commercializes inventions created by TAU faculty, students and researchers. Its offerings are IP management and patent prosecution; licensing of TAU technology to established companies; formation of startups and spin-offs; industry-sponsored research; and fee-based access to TAU research facilities and personnel. Ramot reports approximately 30 licensing transactions a year and dozens of new TAU-based companies, and it operates translational funds such as the TAU Technology Innovation Momentum Fund. The patents it asserts in US litigation cover linearized optical digital-to-analog modulator technology for high-speed optical transceivers.
Patent-litigation posture. Ramot is a two-way litigant: 3 tracked cases as plaintiff, 3 as defendant. It is not a classic NPE — it asserts patents held by assignment from its own university rather than patents acquired from third parties, alongside a genuine licensing and prosecution operation. Its affirmative infringement suits were filed in the Eastern District of Texas before Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Cisco and Acacia (a Cisco subsidiary since March 2021) responded with declaratory-judgment actions in the District of Delaware and IPR petitions.
Notable cases. Ramot sued Cisco in E.D. Tex. in 2014 (voluntarily dismissed in 2015) and again in 2019 over US 10,033,465 and 10,270,535; that case was stayed in January 2021 pending ex parte reexaminations. In February 2021 Ramot sued Acacia alone in D. Del. on the same patents (stayed pending reexam). Cisco and Acacia filed D. Del. DJ actions in September 2021 (the '872 patent) and May 2022 (the '998 patent) and IPR petitions (IPR2022-00575, -00576, -01283). The Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB in April 2026 by nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment.
Sources: ramot.org; Crunchbase; Crustdata; D. Del. opinions (C.A. No. 21-1365-GBW); Fed. Cir. 2024-1726.
PTAB IPRs filed by Cisco challenging U.S. 11,133,872; instituted 2022-10-05 and appealed to the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB (Rule 36) on April 13, 2026.
Declaratory-judgment action of non-infringement as to U.S. 11,133,872, managed alongside 21-295 and 22-674. Claim construction occurred in 2024, and a partial summary-judgment motion on the pre-AIA on-sale bar was denied in Oct. 2025.
Cisco filed an inter partes review against Ramot. Institution was denied under 35 U.S.C. §314(a) based on Fintiv, Paper 15 (May 15, 2020). The IPRs challenged Ramot's continuation patents, the '465/'535/'866 family, not the '425 patent itself.