Divided Infringement: Strategies For Drafting Claims
Dale Lazar, Partner at DLA Piper and Practice Center Contributor , sent in this article discussing divided infringement and how it generally pertains to large systems and corresponding methods. Lazar will be speaking tat PLI’s Patent Law Insitute this Thursday, February 17th. The following is an excerpt from the aticle.
Divided infringement issues are most likely to arise in the context of large systems and corresponding methods, where multiple parties may contribute to or participate in the system. A common instance where divided infringement is likely to arise is a network of computers where the functionality of the system is distributed across the computers of the network. The network employed to connect the computers may be a LAN/WAN and/or the Internet. Particularly where different computers perform different functions for the overall system, the different computers may be owned or operated by different parties, typically with each party not being controlled by other parties involved with the system.
Included at the end of this paper is a patent application directed to a “Reliance Server for a Transaction System”. In many ways, the invention is typical of Internet-based inventions – inventions that are implemented over an open communications channel, such as the Internet. The application has been simplified to focus on only a few of the features of the invention. Please read the application as a basis for understanding the following remarks concerning divided infringement. (more…)
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02.14.11 | Claim Construction and Markman Hearings, Patent Law Institute, posts | Stefanie Levine