PulseLink Systems, LLC filed PulseLink Systems, LLC v. NVIDIA Corporation in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas on September 29, 2026, and demands a jury. The caption leaves the civil-action number blank. The electronic header reads Case 2:26-cv-00875-JRG-RSP, Document 1, filed September 29, 2026. Those initials are Judge Rodney Gilstrap and Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne. The complaint alleges that PulseLink is a Texas limited liability company with a principal place of business in Allen, Texas, and that NVIDIA is a Delaware corporation with places of business at 11001 Lakeline Boulevard, Suite #100 Building 2, Austin, Texas 78717, and 11515 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas 78758. It alleges venue under 28 U.S.C. 1391 and 1400(b). The signature block lists Blair M. Jacobs, Christina A. Ondrick, John S. Holley, and John Wittenzellner of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, and Andrea L. Fair, Claire A. Henry, and Garrett C. Parish of Miller Fair Henry PLLC. The signature line reads "/s/ Blair M. Jacobs by permission Claire Henry," and the docket shows Ms. Henry as the filer.

The five patents and the claims the complaint names

Paragraph 2 of the complaint gives the patent numbers as 7,804,785, 8,300,614, 8,351,431, 8,565,230, and 8,369,220. The complaint says the patents are Exhibits 1 through 5 and that claim charts are Exhibits 6 through 10. This page did not review the claim charts. The claim summaries below restate issued claim 1 as published on Google Patents. They are not findings that NVIDIA practices any claim. The complaint also names other claims. This page does not restate those.

  • U.S. Patent 7,804,785, Network System Having an Instructional Sequence for Performing Packet Processing and Optimizing the Packet Processing, issued September 28, 2010. The complaint names Dave Roberts, Jeffrey Stuart Hansell, and Praveen Ghanashyam Shekokar as inventors. Count I, paragraph 139, alleges at least claims 1, 2, 8, and 11, literally or under the doctrine of equivalents, under 35 U.S.C. 271(a), (b), and (c). The complaint points at Exhibit 6.
  • U.S. Patent 8,300,614, Preventing Packet Loops in Unified Networks, issued October 30, 2012. The complaint names Shashi H. Ankaiah, Vivek L. Atreya, Kumara Das Karunakaran, and Seemant Choudhary as inventors. Paragraph 151 alleges at least claims 1, 2, and 7. The complaint points at Exhibit 7.
  • U.S. Patent 8,351,431, Method and Apparatus for Providing Fast Reroute of a Multicast Packet Within a Network Element to an Available Port Associated with a Multi-Link Trunk, issued January 8, 2013. The complaint names Hamid Assarpour as inventor. Paragraph 163 alleges at least claims 1, 3, and 5. The complaint points at Exhibit 8.
  • U.S. Patent 8,565,230, Shared Virtual Tunnels Supporting MAC Learning in Communication Networks, issued October 22, 2013. The complaint names Srikanth Keesara, Sakthivadivu Saravanaraj, Liming Sun, and Roger Lapuh as inventors. Paragraph 175 alleges at least claims 1, 4, and 5. The complaint points at Exhibit 9.
  • U.S. Patent 8,369,220, Routing a Flow of Elastic Traffic. The complaint says it issued February 5, 2013, and names Bakul Khanna, Jozef Babiarz, Ali Labed, Delfin Montuno, and Hesham El-Bakoury as inventors. Paragraph 187 alleges at least claims 1-14. The complaint points at Exhibit 10.

Each count alleges direct and indirect infringement by making, using, selling, offering for sale, and importing the accused instrumentalities. The complaint alleges that PulseLink sent NVIDIA a letter on May 12, 2026 identifying each asserted patent and the accused products, that the parties corresponded afterward, and that NVIDIA responded on September 22, 2026 without taking a license. It alleges that the infringement has been and continues to be willful, and the prayer asks for a judgment of willfulness and for enhanced damages. Those are allegations. The complaint also alleges that PulseLink has not made, offered for sale, sold, or imported products practicing the patents that would require marking under 35 U.S.C. 287(a), that it presently asserts method claims as to the '614, '431, '230, and '220 patents, and that as to the '785 patent it seeks damages from May 12, 2026 onward and no later than the date of the complaint.

What issued claim 1 of each patent says

Claim 1 of the '785 patent covers a network system with a virtual graph of service modules. A first service module is modeled to represent a network element and initiates primitive operations on a packet. A first packet-processing path is limited by the amount of primitive operations in an instruction set. A second path processes packets that are an exception to those primitive operations. Stateful decision logic determines whether the packet is eligible to be processed by the first path or is required to be processed by another path. An optimization component removes redundant primitive operations and other primitive operations made obsolete by a subsequent primitive operation.

Claim 1 of the '614 patent covers a method of loop prevention in a unified split-plane mobility domain. It identifies a topology of unified switches and links defined by ports. It computes, based on a destination, at least one port, and each link is a virtual tunnel or a physical connection. At a forwarding switch, it determines when forwarding on a particular port causes a loop back to that switch, identifies a loop rule that indicates another port, and forwards on the port the rule indicates. That port is a different one of a tunnel or a physical port than the port that causes the loop.

Claim 1 of the '431 patent covers a computer-implemented method in which a forwarding data unit provides fast re-route of a multicast packet within a network element to an available port associated with a multi-link trunk. The unit receives a packet in the data plane, determines that the packet is multicast, and forwards it to all egress units that have at least one port associated with at least one receiver. That forwarding includes determining whether a receiver port is a stand-alone port, a multi-link trunk group for a local unit, or a multi-link trunk group for a remote unit, and forwarding a copy to each member. Each egress unit looks up a synchronized local port-state database to find a port for each receiver that is in an UP state.

Claim 1 of the '230 patent covers a method for packet switching and routing that provides dual-homed access. It identifies a transport network of switching devices that interconnect at least two access networks and that use tunnels. It identifies first and second switching devices that both connect the first access network, so the access network is dual homed. It creates a shared virtual tunnel connecting both the first and the second switching device to a third switching device, and that tunnel defines a single virtualized source-device address representing both the first and the second. On receiving a packet from the first access network through the dual-homed connection, the method encapsulates the packet with that single address and transmits it through the shared virtual tunnel to the third switching device. The claim then says the shared virtual tunnel extends from a first edge device and a second edge device, in a dual-homed arrangement, to a third edge device, and that those edge devices are the first, second, and third switching devices.

Claim 1 of the '220 patent covers a method of routing a flow of elastic traffic. A switch with a processor identifies plural candidate paths and selects a path according to the numbers of flows on the paths and the measured performances of the paths. If the number of flows on at least one candidate path is less than a predefined threshold, the switch selects based on comparing the numbers of flows. If the number of flows on each candidate path is greater than the threshold, the switch selects based on the measured performances.

What the complaint accuses

The complaint defines the accused instrumentalities as NVIDIA's data-center networking products, DPU products, Ethernet switching platforms, and related software, firmware, and services. The count-level examples are allegations. For the '785 patent, paragraph 112 names the NVIDIA BlueField data processing unit and the ConnectX SmartNIC and SuperNIC platform, including BlueField and ConnectX hardware and the NVIDIA DOCA software framework. For the '614 patent, paragraph 113 names Spectrum-4 SN5000 Series, Spectrum-3 SN4000 Series, Spectrum-2 SN3000 Series, and Spectrum SN2000 Series switches running Cumulus Linux with EVPN multihoming, split-horizon filtering, and designated-forwarder mechanisms for VXLAN overlay loop prevention. For the '431 patent, paragraph 114 names the Spectrum SN5000 series switch operating with Cumulus Linux in a PIM active-active MLAG configuration. For the '230 patent, paragraph 115 names the Spectrum SN5000 series switch deployed in an MLAG VXLAN active-active configuration with Cumulus Linux. For the '220 patent, paragraph 116 names the Spectrum-X Ethernet platform, including its switches, SuperNICs, and the software that configures and operates them, and describes adaptive routing for traffic-performance measurement and selective routing.

Recorded assignments

The complaint alleges that PulseLink owns each patent by assignment, including the right to recover damages for past infringement, and that it acquired them through a chain of title from Avaya and its successors. Assignment Center records reviewed September 29, 2026, show the same latest record on all five patents: Avaya LLC to PulseLink Systems LLC, executed March 9, 2026, and recorded March 14, 2026, at reel/frame 74909/0627. No later assignment was located. PulseLink Systems LLC is the latest recorded assignee.

Earlier records show the '785 patent passing from the inventors to Inkra Networks, Inc., then to Nortel Networks Limited and Avaya Inc.; the '614, '431, and '230 patents assigned by their inventors to Avaya Inc.; and the '220 patent passing from the inventors to Nortel Networks Limited and then to Avaya Inc. Each patent also carries recorded security interests and February 2026 partial releases to Avaya LLC.

Other proceedings on the listings reviewed

The Google Patents legal-events and litigation listings reviewed September 29, 2026, for all five patents do not list an International Trade Commission investigation, an inter partes review, a reexamination, a certificate of correction, or a district-court case. None was found on those listings.

What to read next

The next filings to read are service on NVIDIA and NVIDIA's response.