Opinion ID: 175546
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Material Part of the Invention

Text: The district court held that because the claims included only fragmenting steps, products that only defragment could not infringe either directly or indirectly. Second Noninfringement Order, 2009 WL 3047616, at -25. It held that simply because a receiver defragmented a message, this did not mean that the fragmenting method of the claims had been employed. Id. Philips argues that the accused products defragment messages in accordance with IEEE 802.11 § 9.5, and that § 9.5 requires fragmentation using § 9.4 of the standard. It argues that because the fragmentation of § 9.4 necessarily infringes the asserted claims, then the defragmenting products are useful only for infringement and Netgear should be liable. It argues that the district court agreed that the mention of “data receivers” in claim 1 makes defragmentation material to the asserted claims. Netgear argues that the plain language of § 271(c) requires that the accused component be a “material part of FUJITSU LIMITED v. NETGEAR 16 the invention.” It argues that the claims do not include any defragmentation steps and thus a product that only defragments messages cannot constitute a material part of the invention. We agree with Netgear that a product that only de- fragments messages cannot constitute a “material part” of a claimed invention drawn solely to fragmentation. Philips argues that the district court held that the mention of “data receivers” in the claim makes defragmentation (which would take place at the receiver) a material part of the invention. But the full quote from the district court makes it clear that this was not its holding: I agree that without data receivers capable of de- fragmenting messages . . . the usefulness of the claimed method would be lost. Nonetheless, the claimed method relates only to the fragmentation portion of the transmission; the patent does not disclose defragmentation. Second Noninfringement Order, 2009 WL 3047616, at . We agree with the district court that the asserted claims include no defragmentation steps and therefore hold that products that only defragment messages cannot constitute a “material part” of the invention. We reverse the district court’s summary judgment of no contributory infringement for the four accused models for which Philips showed evidence of direct infringement. We affirm summary judgment of no contributory in- fringement for all other models.