Brad Caldwell, Jason Cassady and John Austin Curry of Caldwell Cassady & Curry

Huawei Technologies has turned to two familiar faces—including one who was previously adverse—in its patent throw-down with Verizon Communications.

Fish & Richardson and Caldwell, Cassady & Curry are separately representing the Chinese telecom giant in two suits alleging that its New York-based competitor is infringing Huawei router and fiber-optic communication technologies. Verizon has called the suits "a PR stunt" driven by Chinese-American tensions.

The suits were filed Wednesday in the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas. Fish & Richardson is handling the Western District case. The firm has appeared frequently for Huawei in the past, including in patent litigation against Nokia and T-Mobile that settled in 2017.

Dallas-based Caldwell Cassady actually sued Huawei for patent infringement as recently as 2017, with the case settling the following year. The Caldwell firm has had some notable successes in the Eastern District, including judgments of $368 million and $503 million against Apple over secure communications technology. (The Federal Circuit sent the $503 million back to district court last fall for a possible retrial on damages.)

Huawei is asserting five patents in the Eastern District suit that are essential for practicing the International Telecommunications Union's G.709 standard interface for optical transport networks.

"Verizon uses this technology to transmit massive amounts of data in a stable and safe way from numerous base stations or access points to remote destinations," alleges the complaint, which is signed by Brad Caldwell and by Gregory Love of the Love Law Firm. "Thus, the technology is important to the core of Verizon's business—enabling individuals and businesses to place calls, access the Internet, and transport data safely, reliably, and quickly."

Also on the complaint are Caldwell partners Jason Cassady, John Austin Curry and Justin Nemunaitis.

The Western District suit asserts seven patents that Huawei contends are infringed by Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks routers deployed in Verizon's networks.

Huawei alleges that it reached out to Verizon on Feb. 7, 2019, to start license negotiations. That would have been about a week after the Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging Huawei and CFO Meng Wanzhou with stealing trade secrets and violating Iran sanctions.

The negotiations continued until as recently as January 21 of this year. "Because Verizon has not accepted Huawei's numerous flexible approaches during the year-long negotiations, Huawei is compelled to now enforce its patent rights through this lawsuit," the Western District complaint states.

Thomas Reger II, a partner in Fish's Dallas office, signed the complaint. Also appearing are partners Ruffin Cordell, David Barkan and associate Brian Strand, along with John Palmer of the Waco office of Naman, Howell, Smith & Lee.

Verizon, which during the early 2000s employed Attorney General William Barr as general counsel, called the suit "a sneak attack on our company and the entire tech ecosystem." It asserts that "Huawei's real target is not Verizon; it is any country or company that defies it."