Several companies have filed patent applications with the US Patent Office for patent protection on technologies relating to the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet standard. The applications have been filed by Cisco (application 20060251067, application 20060098681), Emulex (application 20080056300) and 54th Street Systems (application 20080028096). All the patent applications were filed prior to the FCoE project start date by the FCoE standard committee.
Also interesting is the lack of filings by Qlogic and Brocade, both major players in the Fibre Channel SAN market. Of course, patents with FCoE directly referenced are not the only areas where FCoE products can infringe on other patents.
Disclosure: I am CTO and one of the founders of 54th Street Systems.
