Nvidia has been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit aimed at sales of its data center networking portfolio.

Texas-based PulseLink Systems filed a 65-page lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging the tech giant’s network switching platforms and data processing units infringe on five of its patents covering features like network packet processing, optimization, and loop prevention in unified networks.

PulseLink is seeking compensatory, "enhanced damages," and royalties for sales of systems it claims infringe on its patents. The complaint says the patents originated with Avaya and passed to PulseLink “through an established, unbroken chain of title from Avaya and its successors.”

BlueField DPUs, ConnectX SmartNICs, Spectrum switches running Cumulus Linux, and Spectrum-X with remote direct memory access (RDMA) over converged Ethernet (RoCE) adaptive routing were cited among the Nvidia product lines alleged to feature infringing innovations.

The lawsuit alleges that PulseLink wrote to Nvidia’s CEO, general counsel, and CFO in May asserting ownership of the allegedly infringed patents, followed by multiple rounds of claim charts over about four months. Nvidia responded several times, but opted not to take a license, an action PulseLink contends shows “willfulness” on the tech giant’s part.

A potential problem for PulseLink, though, is the location of the lawsuit. The suit was filed in the Eastern District, but Nvidia is a California-based company, and while it does have a presence in the Lone Star State, its actual Texas office is in the Austin metro area, which would place it in the Western District.

Instead, the complaint got clever, asserting that Nvidia “has control over” facilities in the district belonging to neocloud customers like Lambda. The suit describes a “highly integrated, multifaceted relationship” in which Nvidia “exercises control over Lambda through a financial loop where capital flows between the two companies in multiple directions, effectively tethering Lambda’s balance sheet to Nvidia.”

In addition to Lambda, the complaint also reaches for Aligned Data Centers in Plano, optical component maker Coherent's plant in Sherman, and sites in the area belonging to manufacturers Foxconn and Wistron.

Essentially, PulseLink has sought to use the vendor’s direct supply links as a means to file suit in a jurisdiction renowned for handling patent cases. Often referred to as the "patent rocket docket," the venue is favored by patent owners for its speed and expertise at handling cases. But it’s also favored by patent assertion entities or “trolls” – businesses set up to acquire patents covering vague or since widely used innovations just to sue businesses for money. Nvidia claims patent trolls filed 522 of 613 patent infringement cases in that jurisdiction in 2023.

PulseLink itself is a “non-practicing entity” and has very little information out there to the extent that attempting to access what appears to be its company website returns a WordPress link (as of September 30) that simply reads: “There has been a critical error on this website.”

Nvidia’s networking portfolio has gone from a neat side hustle to a lucrative part of its whole AI factory schtick.

Revenues for its interconnectivity business alone grew 18% sequentially for the second quarter ending July 26, 2026, with Spectrum-X Ethernet sales growing 2.6-times on a year-over-year basis.

Company leadership has repeatedly claimed Nvidia is the largest networking company in the world, with CFO Colette Kress telling investors it was also the fastest-growing vendor in this space.