Divided Infringement

The case of Rearden LLC et al. v. The Walt Disney Company et al., has been covered more in the Hollywood Reporter than in legal publications, but it is both a “Hollywood story” and a case with intellectual property issues that cover the spectrum of patent, copyright and (to a lesser extent) trademark law.

It has been about a year since the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Limelight v. Akamai regarding induced infringement for methods performed by two or more actors.

The Federal Circuit recently denied a request for rehearing en banc in the matter of Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Sys., Inc., in a 6-5 vote of the participating judges. 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 21713 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 25, 2013) (“Commil II”). The result is that evidence of a good faith belief of invalidity of a patent is relevant to rebut an allegation of induced infringement, which was the holding of a three judge panel earlier in the year.