Our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, August 17, 2015 will be a discussion of the following case:

Akamai Technologies, MIT v. Limelight, (Fed. Cir. Aug. 13, 2015) (available here). The United States Supreme returned this case to Federal Circuit.   Sitting en banc, the Circuit unanimously set forth the law of divided infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), concluding that substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding that Limelight directly infringes U.S. Patent 6,108,703 (the “’703 patent”) under § 271(a) and reversing the district court’s grant of judgment of noninfringement as a matter of law.  The Court held that under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) an entity is liable for direct infringement via a third party’s actions (1) where the entity directs or controls others’ performance, and (2) where the actors form a joint enterprise.   The court stated that direction or control may be found “when an alleged infringer conditions participation in an activity or receipt of a benefit upon performance of a step or steps of a patented method and establishes the manner or timing of that performance,” even if there is no principal-agent or contractual relationship.  Applying this interpretation of § 271(a), the court found that Akamai had presented substantial evidence that Limelight directed or controlled its customers’ use of the network.