Federal Circuit marks the spot – Multistep patents prove hard to defend

Description

Abstract: Winning a patent infringement claim can be tricky — especially when the patent in question covers a multistep method or process. A U.S. appeals court recently made this abundantly clear in a case in which a patentee argued that another company’s mapping software systems directly performed all of the steps in the patented method. This article examines the court’s conclusion that the patentee failed to prove that each and every step of the method was performed, and therefore no direct infringement had occurred. But a sidebar notes that the court found that the lower court should have conducted an indirect infringement analysis, and sent the case back to the district court. Move, Inc. v. Real Estate Alliance Ltd., No. 2012-1342, March 4, 2013 (Fed. Cir.) Akamai Technologies Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., No. 2010-1291, Aug. 31, 2012 (Fed. Cir.)