Nautilus and Limelight: The Supreme Court Keeps Chipping Away at Patentees (Live MBHB Webinar)

At nearly every turn, it seems, the U.S. Supreme Court finds a way to inject uncertainty and reduce the available protections to patent owners. In their latest reversals, Nautilus v. Biosig and Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., the justices hold true to form.

• In Nautilus, the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the holding of more than 45 Federal Circuit decisions, and countless district court decisions, that applied the “insolubly ambiguous” standard for indefiniteness, and replaced it with a new “reasonable certainty” standard.

• In Limelight Networks, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s en banc holding that a defendant need not perform all of the steps of a method claim to infringe where it performs some and induces third parties to perform the rest, in spite of the admitted anomalous result that a would-be infringer can simply structure its conduct so that a third party performs one claimed step to avoid infringement.

Both of these cases present pitfalls in patent prosecution, and in litigation elevate the importance of selecting the right claims, the right defendants, and the right infringement allegations. Join MBHB partners Grant Drutchas, a litigator with more than 20 years of trial experience, and Don Zuhn, a prosecutor and founder of the Patent Docs blog, for a discussion of these cases and their impact on patent practice.

Presenters: MBHB partners Grantland G. Drutchas and Donald L. Zuhn, Jr., Ph.D.

Access an archived audio version of this webinar here. NOTE: MCLE credit is not available for this archived recording. 

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP is committed to educating clients and friends of the firm with respect to significant developments and trends in the areas of intellectual property law.