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Mark Chandler

Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer

General Counsel

Mark Chandler is Executive Vice President, Legal Services, and General Counsel for Cisco, and is also Cisco's Chief Compliance Officer. In these roles, he oversees Cisco's global legal activities and policies, as well as ethics, compliance and regulatory affairs, employee relations, investigations, and brand protection. He has been General Counsel since 2001.

Previously, he was Managing Attorney for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, based in Paris. A primary part of his focus is developing solutions to simplify the support for Cisco's sales and services transactions, including process automation and anticipation of future transactional needs.

Chandler joined Cisco in 1996, when Cisco acquired StrataCom, Inc., where he had been general counsel. Prior to StrataCom, he served for six years as vice president of corporate development and general counsel for Maxtor Corporation, a Fortune 500 hard disk drive manufacturer. From 1986-1988 he worked in the marketing department of Siemens AG, Munich, and in 1985-1986 lived in Germany as part of the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program.

Chandler is a member of the Dean's Advisory Council for Stanford Law School, the Board of Directors of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, and the Board of Trustees for Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Mass. He previously served as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council, member and chairman of the City of Palo Alto Planning Commission, and member of the Palo Alto Utilities Advisory Commission. In spring 2016, he was a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School. In 2010, The National Law Journal named him one of the 40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Decade, and in 2013, American Lawyer numbered him among the Top 50 Big Law Innovators of the Last 50 Years.

Chandler received a JD degree from Stanford Law School in 1981 and a BA degree in economics from Harvard College in 1978.

You can also follow Mark on the German Blog site, and on the Cisco Newsroom.

Articles

June 21, 2017

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Protecting Innovation: ITC Enforcement Action Initial Determination

We received word today that an ITC judge has issued a decision that Arista’s redesigned products do not continue to use the Cisco “SysDB” patented technology, which Arista was found to have infringed in the ITC’s “944 Investigation”.  The judge’s order is subject to review by the full Commission, an…

Update: U.S. Patent and Trade Office Reviews

Update (6/01/2017): We disagree with the Patent Office decision regarding the ‘668 patent, particularly since the ITC rejected Arista’s validity challenges and found the patent both valid and infringed. We intend to appeal the Patent Office’s decision, which will be the final determination regarding…

Enough is Enough – Change Must Begin Now

Beginning last week, many organizations around the globe found themselves responding to infected computers in their environments that were hit with new malicious ransomware called “WannaCry.” Most other organizations reacted quickly to protect their network-critical files from being taken hostage by…

Protecting Innovation: Commission Upholds Judge’s Ruling in ITC ‘945 Investigation

This afternoon the International Trade Commission ruled that Arista switches infringe two additional Cisco patents, covering addressable memory and control plane policing, which are core technologies in network switching. By confirming Administrative Law Judge McNamara’s Initial Determination, the C…

April 4, 2017

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Protecting Innovation: Update on ITC Enforcement Action

UPDATE (April 7, 2017): The U.S. CBP agency today decided to allow importation of Arista’s redesigned products into the U.S. while the ITC enforcement proceedings for case ‘944 are underway. The decision was issued after the agency met with counsel for both parties in late February, where our outsid…

March 30, 2017

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Legal Services Funding Supports Integrity of our Legal System

Our market economy, which produces goods and services and jobs for billions around the world, is built on the foundation of a strong commercial law system – a foundation that promises “a deal is a deal”, that rights and obligations can be enforced through courts offering equal justice under law. For…

March 28, 2017

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Supports Tech Effort to Help Hate Crime Victims

Recently I had the chance to see how smart technology, applied to vexing social problems, can help provide solutions and build a better world. Working with the American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation (ABA), we’re deeply engaged in an effort to create a better path for those who believe they…

January 14, 2017

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Protecting Innovation: CBP Revokes Approval of Arista Redesign

Late yesterday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency revoked its November 2016 finding that Arista’s supposedly “redesigned” products don’t infringe a key Cisco patent.  You can read CBP’s letter of revocation here. The revocation covers all Arista products.  This means that Arista ha…

December 14, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Protecting Innovation: Arista’s Copying of Cisco’s User Interfaces

I can’t pretend not to be disappointed that a jury in federal court, having found that Arista copied Cisco’s user interfaces and that the copying was not justified by the fair use doctrine, applied the little known principle of “scènes à faire” to deny Cisco relief for Arista’s action. In laymen’s t…