Equinix, Inc. filed Equinix, Inc. v. NovaCloud Licensing, LLC, No. 3:26-cv-10585 (N.D. Cal. San Francisco), on September 16, 2026. The complaint is a declaratory-judgment action for noninfringement of five U.S. patents that, the complaint alleges on information and belief, NovaCloud purports to own by assignment from a third-party telecommunications company. Equinix demands a jury trial.
Patents and accused products
The patents in the case are U.S. Patents 8,401,028 (Selection of an Edge Node in a Fixed Access Communication Network); 8,606,738 (Policy-Based Management in Communication Network); 7,869,447 (Method and System for Multi-Domain Virtual Private Network Configuration); 8,407,348 (Monitoring Network Usage); and 9,847,903 (Method and Apparatus for Configuring a Communication System). NovaCloud's July 2026 letter to Equinix's CEO identified claim 1 of each patent as relevant to specific Equinix offerings: the '028 and '738 patents to Network Edge; the '447 patent to Fabric, Fabric Router, and Fabric Cloud Router; the '348 patent to SmartView; and the '903 patent to Network Edge, Fabric, and Fabric Cloud Router. Equinix seeks declarations that those products and services do not infringe.
What the patents cover
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,401,028 covers a method of selecting an edge node in a fixed access communications network: a selection node receives a host entity's request for a network service, obtains status and capability data for the edge nodes from a dynamically updated database, selects an edge node that provides a path between the host entity and the requested service, and sends the host entity a response identifying the selected edge node.
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,606,738 covers policy-based management in which, when an event occurs, a policy enforcement point requests decisions from several policy decision points through a policy strategy point; each decision point evaluates the event against its own policy; the strategy point applies a configured decision strategy, comprising an algorithm, to generate a resulting decision; and the enforcement point executes that decision.
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 7,869,447 covers configuring a multi-domain virtual private network: domain VPN information, including VPN identities, is provided within at least two interconnected VPN provider domains; a connect request seeks to connect a first edge node to a VPN not available in its own domain; the VPN's identity is matched against another domain's VPN identities by sending an information request to an adjacent domain, which returns an acknowledgment identifying the domains to be transited; and the VPN is configured to include the edge node based on the match.
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,407,348 covers monitoring a user's usage of a network service by recording how long the service was considered active relative to a predefined activity threshold value, its average loading during that active time, and how long it was considered saturated relative to a predefined saturation threshold value.
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 9,847,903 covers a method in a configuration server that configures a first plurality of nodes in a first cluster and a second plurality of nodes in a second cluster, each node storing the configuration service address of the server, so that the server acts as a common configuration server for at least the two clusters.
What the lawsuit is about
Equinix frames this as a defensive declaratory-judgment action. The complaint says NovaCloud's licensing outreach moved from an April 2026 draft nondisclosure agreement to a July 17, 2026 letter to Equinix's CEO naming five patents and claim 1 of each as relevant to Equinix products. It also says NovaCloud has filed infringement suits against at least eight operating companies, asserting some of the same patents from the same portfolio, and that two other companies have filed their own declaratory-judgment actions against NovaCloud. The court dockets list NovaCloud as plaintiff in Nos. 1:25-cv-00674, 1:25-cv-01272, 1:26-cv-00433, and 1:26-cv-01130 (D. Del.); Nos. 2:25-cv-00700, 2:25-cv-01228, and 2:25-cv-01266 (E.D. Tex.); and No. 7:26-cv-00035 (W.D. Tex.), and as defendant in declaratory-judgment actions Nos. 3:25-cv-08118 and 4:26-cv-04259 (N.D. Cal.). Equinix alleges that Network Edge, Fabric, Fabric Router, Fabric Cloud Router, and SmartView do not practice all the limitations of any claim of the five patents, and it seeks declarations of noninfringement of every enforceable claim.
What to watch next
Watch for NovaCloud's response to the complaint, including any motion to dismiss for lack of declaratory judgment jurisdiction, and for a case management schedule after the September 30, 2026 reassignment; the September 17, 2026 scheduling order had set an initial case management conference for December 17, 2026. The case can end at any time, including by settlement or voluntary dismissal.