Court: Company didn't induce patent infringement
Source: AP-Excite
WASHINGTON (AP) A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that a company is not liable for inducing patent infringement if someone other than the company carries out some of the steps leading to infringement.
The justices unanimously ruled Monday that Internet content delivery company Limelight Networks Inc. did not infringe on the patented system for managing images and video owned by rival Akamai Technologies Inc.
Akamai claimed Limelight used some of its patented methods for speeding content delivery, and then illegally encouraged its customers to carry out the remaining steps. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed, but the Supreme Court reversed.
Justice Samuel Alito said all the steps for patent infringement must be performed by a single party. Since there was no direct infringement, Alito said there could be no inducement.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140602/supreme-court-patents-9a1bb930af.html
Ms. Toad
(33,915 posts)Either that or legislation 101.
It means that if you are a legitimate business (I don't care about trolls), your competitors can much more easily use your invention without infringing by shifting the performance of some of the elements to a customer or an independent third party.
Most of it can be fixed by careful claim drafting, but that won't save the patents in the pipeline now...
On the other hand, it will make some legitimate companies very happy at the thought of a new tool (actually an old one revived) to bash trolls about the head with.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)wondering if they'll go after the customers who infringed now... or if they even could manage that