The Business of Patents
Patenting inventions that involve web-based interactions between a business and customers or other third parties can be particularly challenging because of a problem called “divided infringement.” The problem is that in order to distinguish the prior art, you often have to identify system components or method steps in your claims which are the responsibility of multiple […]
Read more →With the incredible advances in computing technology over the last 20 years has come a vast array of inventions that are implemented in some form of software. Smartphone apps, TV apps, manufacturing processes, facial recognition technology, artificial intelligence program, the list of products and processes that rely on some form of software is endless. Some […]
Read more →Clients often ask us to perform patentability searches to determine whether it’s worth seeking a patent for an invention. The focus of a patentability search is to determine if an invention is novel, i.e., whether all of its features have been disclosed in a single prior art reference. The purpose of a patentability search is […]
Read more →Last week, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the May 13, 2015 panel opinion in Akamai Technologies, Inc. et al. v. Limelight Networks, Inc. (Fed. Cir., Slip Opinion Case No. 2019-1372, -1380, -1416, -1417) and issued a new en banc opinion. A copy of the en banc opinion can be found here. We discussed […]
Read more →When drafting patent claims for a device, it is often desirable to describe the device based on how it works instead of how it is structured. Describing a device based on how it works is often referred to as “functional claiming.” Claims that make use of functional claiming are frequently broader in scope than those […]
Read more →Following a remand from the U.S. Supreme Court last June, on May 13, 2015 the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued another opinion in Akamai Technologies, Inc. et al. v. Limelight Networks, Inc.(Fed. Cir., Slip Opinion Case No. 2009-1372, May 13, 2015). This time, the Federal circuit considered the circumstances under which a method […]
Read more →In Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., (for a copy of the opinion, click here) the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s holding that Limelight could be liable for actively inducing the infringement of Akamai’s patent claims even though, under the Federal Circuit’s governing standards, no party could be held liable for directly infringing the claims. We discussed the case in […]
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