Federal Circuit reinstates $45m Akamai v Limelight ruling
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reinstated the $45.5 million damages award in the Akamai v Limelight dispute after it ruled en banc that Limelight is liable for direct infringement.
Yesterday, August 13, the federal circuit ruled in a 10-0 decision that “substantial evidence” supports the finding that Limelight is liable for direct infringement of patent 6,108,703.
Judges Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen and Kara Fernandez Stoll did not participate in the decision.
The latest decision is a reversal of the May 2015 ruling from the federal circuit that determined Limelight was not liable for infringement of patent ‘703 which covers a method of delivering content on a web page.
In 2006, Akamai sued Limelight for infringement at the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. In the dispute, it was agreed that it was Limelight’s customers that performed the “tagging” and “serving” claims asserted in the patent and therefore completed the final steps of infringement.
In 2008, a jury awarded Akamai $45.5 million in damages, but this was reversed a year later by Judge Rya Zobel, who presided over the case.
The central question in the dispute was whether Limelight had to complete all the steps of an infringement to be found liable for direct infringement. The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that for a party to be held liable for direct infringement, all the steps of the infringement have to be attributed to a single entity.
In yesterday’s decision the federal circuit outlined the guidelines in which a single entity can be held responsible for the infringement of multiple parties
These are: when there is an agreement, express or implied, among the members of the group; a common purpose to be carried out by the group; a community of pecuniary interest in that purpose among the members and an equal right to a voice in the direction of the enterprise, which gives an equal right of control.
Because Limelight provided instructions on how to use its products and engineers are in regular contact with the company’s customers, the federal circuit ruled that a jury was correct in finding that Limelight was a single entity under the guidelines and therefore infringed the ‘703 patent.
The court said: “We conclude, on the facts of this case, that liability can also 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.
“Substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict that all steps of the claimed methods were performed by or attributable to Limelight,” the court concluded.
A spokesperson for Akamai said: “We are extremely pleased that the federal circuit has unanimously recognised that Limelight is liable for direct infringement.
“Akamai is at the forefront of innovation on the internet and today’s ruling recognises the strength of our intellectual property,” he added.
Bob Lento, chief executive at Limelight, said: "We are disappointed this outcome isn’t aligned with the recent rulings in our favour, which were supported by many global technology and industry leading companies."
Robert Fischer, partner at law firm Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto, said the decision widens the definition of what constitutes direct infringement.
He said that “although the exact bounds of this new decision will necessarily require further case law decision to determine; on its face it represents an expansion of the scope of liability for direct infringement”.
