On Friday, September 23, 2016 the Federal Circuit overturned a Delaware federal judge's ruling that Finnegan client Sprint Communications' voice over internet protocol (VOIP) patents were too vague to be legally valid. The infringement suit began in 2011 when Sprint sued several cable operators, including Cox Communications, for infringing a dozen of their VOIP technology patents. In 2015, Cox asked a Delaware judge to invalidate six of the patents, claiming they were indefinite. The judge invalidated the patents, stating that the patents do not clearly limit the scope of the invention under the standard set forth in Nautilus. Sprint appealed the decision, arguing that the judge did not properly analyze the patents under Nautilus; the Federal Circuit agreed.