Supreme Court Reverses Federal Circuit’s Inducement Ruling in Akamai

On June 2, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its unanimous opinion in Limelight Networks v. Akamai (available here). The Supreme Court held that a defendant cannot be held liable for inducing infringement of a patent under 35 U. S. C. § 271(b) when “no one has directly infringed the patent under § 271(a) or any other statutory provision.” The Supreme Court reasoned that, “in this case, performance of all the claimed steps cannot be attributed to a single person, so direct infringement never occurred” and faulted the Federal Circuit for “adopt[ing] the view that Limelight induced infringement on the theory that the steps that Limelight and its customers perform would infringe the ’703 patent if all the steps were performed by the same person.” Because there was no direct infringement, “Limelight cannot be liable for inducing infringement that never came to pass.” The practical effect of this reversal is that it makes it harder to establish liability for induced infringement.