Failure to Establish Direct Infringement by Customers Sinks Indirect Infringement Claims

In granting defendant's motion for summary judgment of no indirect infringement, the court found that "even after extensive discovery - comprising over 7 million pages of documents, 40 depositions, and 55 subpoenas to [defendant's] customers - [plaintiff] has failed to present even a single instance of a customer using the [accused] products in an allegedly infringing manner. . . . [Plaintiff] has not cited a single document in which [defendant] instructs its customers to implement the exact scenarios that [plaintiff] contends infringe the [patents-in-suit], all of which require a specific combination and configuration of products, supported by particular hardware and other specified elements, before they are even capable of infringing."

TecSec, Incorporated v. International Business Machines, et. al., 1-10-cv-00115 (VAED March 3, 2011, Order) (Brinkema, J.)