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You could say Palo Alto Networks has arrived, as it’s now being sued by larger security rival Juniper Networks.

Juniper filed a lawsuit earlier today alleging Palo Alto Networks, a pioneer in next-generation firewall technology and products, violated at least six of its firewall patents. Juniper is seeking unspecified damaged and an injunction from using protected innovations.

“Juniper focuses on delivering breakthrough innovations for our customers.  As a leading high-performance networking company, we will take every appropriate measure to defend and protect our innovation,” said David Shane, vice president of corporate communications at Juniper, in an email to Channelnomics.

Palo Alto was just named a next-generation firewall (NGFW) market leader by Gartner. The analyst firm judged Palo Alto and Check Point Software Technologies as the leaders, where Juniper was grouped among the challengers. The rationale for Juniper’s placement is it has the capacity to compete even though it doesn’t have the same NGFW technology.

“During the evaluation period, Juniper appeared to focus more on other areas of its business and did not make significant advances with its firewall products. Juniper is, however, often shortlisted and/or selected in carrier, service provider and data center deployments, primarily because of price and high throughput on its largest appliances,” Gartner wrote in its Magic Quadrant report.

>> CHECK OUT: The Rising Next-Gen Firewall Opportunity

At issue in the lawsuit isn’t the “next-generation” part of Palo Alto’s products, but rather the underlying firewall technology that makes up the core protection functionality. And the allegation is more than just a casual or intended overlap in approaches, given the two companies’ lineage.

Juniper got into the security and firewall market through its 2004 acquisition of NetScreen Technologies, a pioneer of high-performance firewalls that worked to compete with and displace then-market leader Check Point firewalls.

Palo Alto’s principle founder and technology leader Nir Zuk has a long history in the security industry and his pedigree is traceable through a string of related companies.  He left Check Point in 1999 to start OneSecure, an intrusion prevention company based in Israel. In 2002, OneSecure was acquired by NetScreen and Zuk became the company’s chief technology officer. In 2004, Juniper acquired NetScreen for $4 billion and Zuk became the chief security technologist. Zuk left Juniper in 2005 to form Palo Alto.

So far, Palo Alto partners are taking a wait-and-see approach to the brewing legal battle. One solution provider who partners with both companies told Channelnomics the lawsuit is more a matter of curiosity than any major disruption. However, there’s a chance the lawsuit could throw Palo Alto off its strategic plans and decelerate growth, he said.

The lawsuit caps an interesting year for Palo Alto, which has been enjoying juggernaut status in the relatively staid security market. It started the year with the unexpected departure of CEO Lane Bess, then labored for months under rumors that McAfee chief Dave DeWalt would take over the company, and, over the summer, appointed a new leader in Mark McLaughlin.

Despite the management disruptions, Palo Alto continued to amass partners and sales. Some analysts place Palo Alto at near $200 million in revenue.

The lawsuit – successful or not – could prove distracting to Palo Alto, a significantly small company with fewer resources than Juniper.

The bottom line: Anyone who doubted that the next-generation firewall market is more marketing than hype should think again. The Juniper lawsuit validates Palo Alto as a competitive threat to conventional security vendors and demonstrates the strategic shift in security technology adoption to come.