Inducement of infringement of a method claim under §271(b) requires that performance of all the claimed steps be attributed to a single person in a manner that would constitute direct infringement under §271(a). The doctrine of divided infringement via inducement as formulated by the Federal Circuit has been overruled.
Background / Facts:This case was granted certiorari to decide the issue of divided infringement. In the decision below, the Federal Circuit asserted that although all the steps of a claimed method must be performed in order to find induced infringement, it is not necessary to prove that all the steps were committed by a single entity. In so holding, it overruled its precedent in BMC Res., Inc. v. Paymentech, L.P., 498 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2007) that in order for a party to be liable for induced infringement, some other entity must be liable for direct infringement.
Issue(s): Whether a defendant may be liable for inducing infringement of a patent under 35 U.S.C. §271(b) when no one has directly infringed the patent under §271(a) or any other statutory provision.
Holding(s): No. In reversing the decision below, the Court stated that “[t]he Federal Circuit’s [divided infringement] analysis fundamentally misunderstands what it means to infringe a method patent.” In the scenario at issue where the method steps are performed across independent entities, “there has simply been no infringement of the method … because the performance of all the patent’s steps is not attributable to any one person. And, as both the Federal Circuit and respondents admit, where there has been no direct infringement, there can be no inducement of infringement under §271(b).”
SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT: AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. LIMELIGHT NETWORKS, INC. (Fed. Cir. 2015) (P)