US court says Limelight did not infringe Akamai patent

An appeals court has upheld a US Supreme Court ruling in the Akamai v Limelight case stating that Limelight is not liable for patent infringement because multiple parties had performed different steps of the infringement.

In a 2-1 ruling issued yesterday (May 13), three judges at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Limelight did not infringe a patent covering a method for delivering content on a web page.

Limelight provides its customers a server to place content to use on their own web pages.

Akamai, a technology company, said Limelight was liable for infringing its patent, US number 6,108,703, even though Limelight’s customers were required to complete the alleged infringement.

It first filed a claim at the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 2006. The court awarded Akamai $45 million in damages in 2008, but this was reversed in 2009 after the federal circuit asked for the case to be reviewed.

But in 2012, the federal circuit ruled in favour of Akamai. Limelight appealed against the judgment and the case was heard at the Supreme Court in April 2014.

In June 2014, the court’s nine judges ruled unanimously in favour of Limelight.

Referencing section 271(b) of the US Code, the court said for an infringement claim to stand up all steps must be performed by a single entity.

It then sent the case back to the federal circuit for further consideration.

Yesterday, the federal circuit ruled in favour of Limelight.

The court said: “Limelight did not perform all the steps of the asserted method claims of patent ‘703 and because the record contains no basis on which to impose liability on Limelight for the actions of its customers who carried out the other steps, Limelight has not directly infringed the patent.”

The federal circuit’s opinion was not unanimous.

Judge Kimberley Moore, one of the judges presiding over the case, wrote a dissenting opinion criticising the “single entity rule” that underpins section 271 as “judicial fiction”.

She said: “Today the majority [the court’s other two judges] holds that the actions of multiple parties can only result in direct infringement of a method claim in three circumstances: in a principle-agent relationship, in a contractual arrangement, or in a joint enterprise functioning as a form of mutual agency.

“The majority’s single entity rule is judicial fiction which upsets the settled expectations of the inventing and business community.”

Bob Lento, chief executive of Limelight, said: “We are pleased that the federal circuit panel held in our favour.

“We invest in intellectual property and respect the rules governing its use and will continue to protect the interests of our customers and shareholders,” he added.

A spokesperson for Akamai told WIPR that the company plans to appeal against the decision and seek a review en banc.

The spokesperson added that Moore’s dissenting opinion provided all the more reason for the court to review the decision again.