In the long-awaited decision in Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Techs., Inc., the Supreme Court once again reversed the Federal Circuit. This time, the Court’s reversal involved the issue of indirect infringement. Specifically, the Court held that an accused infringer cannot be liable for inducing infringement under §271(b) where no one has directly infringed under §271(a) or any other statutory provision.
By way of background, Akamai Technologies, Inc., (“Akamai”) is the exclusive licensee of a patent that claims a method of delivering electronic data using a content delivery network (“CDN”). Limelight Networks, Inc., (“Limelight”) also operates a CDN and carries out several of the claimed steps in the patent. But, its customers, rather than Limelight itself, perform a claimed step of the patent known as “tagging.”
Under Federal Circuit case law, most recently refined in Miniauction, Inc. v. Thomson Corp., liability for direct infringement of a method patent requires performance of all steps to be attributable to a single party. The District Court concluded that Limelight could not have directly infringed the patent at issue because performance of the “tagging” step could not be attributed to Limelight. In an en banc decision, the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that a defendant who performed some steps of a method patent and encouraged others to perform the rest could be liable for inducement of infringement even if no single entity was liable for direct infringement.