No joint infringement from third party's use of defendant's website

Defendant was entitled to summary judgment of noninfringement because at least one step of the claimed method was performed by users of defendant's website and plaintiffs "failed to raise a triable issue of fact that [defendant] 'controls or directs' the users such that it is appropriate to hold [defendant] vicariously liable for the acts of the users." Defendant "allows users access to its websites, but does not cause those users to access any particular information."

Keithley v. The Home Store.Com, Inc., 3-03-cv-04447 (CAND November 19, 2008, Order)

Use of unregistered engineers or engineers without college degrees is not probative of willfulness

"[Plaintiff] argues that [defendant's] engineers are more likely to engage in willful patent infringement because they lack college degrees or are not registered engineers. It is not obvious to the Court that a college degree or a registration certificate makes one more honest. Absent some evidence or authority to the contrary, the lack of a degree or the lack of a registration is not probative of willfulness."

The GSI Group Inc. v. Sukup Manufacturing Co., 3-05-cv-03011 (ILCD November 18, 2008, Opinion)

Court's injunction may prohibit more than infringing conduct

"[Defendant] is incorrect in asserting the proposition that infringement is the sine qua non for violation of an injunction. Where infringement has been proven, the Court has the power to enjoin conduct that would further infringement but that falls short of infringement."

Broadcom Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 8-05-cv-00467 (CACD November 17, 2008, Order)

KSR did not change the law of obviousness such that invalidating prior art was not material as of the application date

"While KSR [Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727 (2007)] may have changed the manner in which the Federal Circuit’s teaching, suggestion, motivation test is applied, the Federal Circuit has stated, on numerous occasions, that it did not announce a new rule of law. . . . Consequently, the court does not believe that the materiality analysis is affected."


B K Lighting Inc. v. Vision3 Lighting, 2-06-cv-02825 (CACD November 14, 2008, Order)

Claim construction required before ruling on divided infringement defense

The court denied the accused infringer's motion for summary judgment of noninfringement on the ground that no one party could perform all steps of the method claim, since certain steps were performed on the accused infringer's server and other steps were performed by third-party users. "[The accused infringer] has not established whether the computer server itself is an independent actor, or is merely functioning as a piece of technology used or controlled by another actor. . . . To determine whether the users perform all the elements of the claim with the assistance of the server, or whether the users perform some of the elements and then direct or control the server in its performance of the remaining elements of the claims at issue, this Court must first determine what the elements are via a claim construction hearing."

kSolo, Inc. v. Gary Catona, 2-07-cv-05213 (CACD November 10, 2008, Minutes of Motion Hearing)

Plaintiff was not entitled to defendants' customer lists and customer-specific sales data

"[T]he identity of all of defendants’ U.S. customers and the sales associated with each U.S. customer" was not necessary "to determine convoyed sales or inducement of infringement" or "to arrive at defendants' monitoring revenues. . . . [T]the Court finds no reason to compel detailed customer information to [plaintiff] simply for it to arrive at defendants’ monitoring revenues. As the defendant points out, there are other means of calculating this revenue accurately."

Paradox Security Systems, Ltd. v. ADT Security Services, Inc., 2-06-cv-00462 (TXED November 12, 2008, Order)

Permanent injunction warranted despite plaintiff's concession that it would have entertained the possibility of a license to defendant

"Although plaintiff's willingness to forgo its patent rights (generally) for compensation may be inconsistent with the notion that money damages are inadequate, it is certainly not a dispositive factor. . . . [Rather], the utmost import in the context of evaluating irreparable harm and the adequacy of money damages is the nature of the competition between plaintiff and defendant in the [relevant] market. . . .This case presents the unique situation in which defendant, by its launch of an infringing product, gained market entry in a critical period."

Callaway Golf Co. v. Acushnet Co., 1-06-cv-00091 (DED November 10, 2008, Memorandum Opinion)