Posts Tagged: "Infringement Suit"

The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Richard Taranto noted that “the matter at hand reveals a gap in our jurisprudence on what constitutes ‘use’ under § 271(a).” The Federal Circuit found no controlling precedent on the definition of “use” of a claimed system when the accused infringer must act to put the claimed system into service but does not appear to possess any element of the claimed system. Further, the panel felt that McDonald’s had overstated the Federal Circuit’s holding in Uniloc as the appellate court concluded that a single party can still use a system and directly infringe a patent even when that system requires multiple parties to function. “Therefore, Uniloc only broadened the scope of potential direct infringers under § 271(a),” the Federal Circuit found.