Source: https://www.pharmapatentsblog.com/2012/09/04/en-banc-federal-circuit-eases-requirements-for-induced-infringement-of-method-claims/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 13:51:23+00:00

Document:
On August 31, 2012, the Federal Circuit issued an en banc, per curiam opinion deciding both Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc. and McKesson Technologies, Inc. v. Epic Systems Corp., which each relate to the requirements for establishing infringement when all of the steps of a method claim are not performed by a single party. The court overruled its 2007 decision in BMC Resources, Inc. v. Paymentech, L.P., and held that induced infringement can be found even if a single entity is not liable for direct infringement. While the cases before the court pertain to computer-related inventions, this decision will be important to patents in the field of personalized medicine, where a doctor, patient, and laboratory may be involved in various steps of a diagnostic or therapeutic method.
In the McKesson case, Epic can be held liable for inducing infringement if it can be shown that (1) it knew of McKesson’s patent, (2) it induced the performance of the steps of the method claimed in the patent, and (3) those steps were performed.
[In the Akami case,] Limelight would be liable for inducing infringement if the patentee could show that (1) Limelight knew of Akamai’s patent, (2) it performed all but one of the steps of the method claimed in the patent, (3) it induced the content providers to perform the final step of the claimed method, and (4) the content providers in fact performed that final step.
Judge Newman dissented and criticized the court for failing to resolve the issue of divided direct infringement, and for expanding liability for induced infringement.
This en banc court has split into two factions, neither of which resolves the issues of divided infringement. A scant majority of the court adopts a new theory of patent infringement, based on criminal law, whereby any entity that “advises, encourages, or otherwise induces,” maj. op. 14, or “causes, urges, encourages, or aids the infringing conduct,” id. at 15, is liable for the infringing conduct. The majority further holds that only the “inducer” is liable for divided infringement, and that the direct infringers are not liable although the patent rights are “plainly being violated by the actors’ joint conduct.” Id. at 10. These are dramatic changes in the law of infringement.
On this unsound foundation, the majority holds that in the present appeals there has been predicate “infringement” even though § 271(a)’s requirements are not satisfied. On that basis, the majority vacates the contrary judgments of the district courts and remands for further proceedings concerning liability under § 271(b). In my view, the plain language of the statute and the unambiguous holdings of the Supreme Court militate for adoption en banc of the prior decisions of the court in BMC … and Muniauction … , which hold that liability under § 271(b) requires the existence of an act of direct infringement under § 271(a), meaning that all steps of a claimed method be practiced, alone or vicariously, by a single entity or joint enterprise.
Barring a Supreme Court decision that reverses or refines this holding, the Federal Circuit’s decision in Akami may make it easier to obtain patents in the personalized medicine space that both satisfy 35 USC § 101 as interpreted by the Supreme Court’s Prometheus decision, and that are enforceable against a single infringer or inducer. As I wrote previously, certain aspects of the Prometheus decision encourage method steps that would be carried out by different actors, such as one or more doctors, a testing laboratory, and/or the patient. While it is possible that an agency relationship could link those parties, the holding in Akami may make it easier to assert such patents against an inducer who encourages others to commit some or all of method steps that constitute infringement, even where the parties performing individual steps are acting independently.

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