Cisco’s $2 Billion Loss Nixed Over Judge’s Wife Owning Stock (2)

The Federal Circuit threw out a $1.9 billion patent infringement verdict against Cisco Systems Inc., finding the judge who levied the penalty should’ve recused himself after learning that his wife had stock in the company.

Cisco and Centripetal Networks Inc., a Herndon, Va., startup, will return to the district court to litigate whether Cisco infringed Centripetal cybersecurity patents.

The ruling comes amid a push to make federal judges’ financial disclosures more transparent—an effort that led to the enactment last month of a new federal law aimed at making that information more accessible to the public

Judge Henry Morgan learned in ...