Magistrate Judge Christopher J. Burke recently recommended the dismissal of a plaintiff’s induced infringement claims. Trans Video Electronics, Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc., C.A. No. 12-1743-LPS (D. Del. Mar. 4, 2014). Judge Burke first found that the plaintiff failed to adequately allege pre-suit knowledge of the asserted patent. Specifically, the plaintiff’s allegation that the defendant “has had knowledge of the ‘936 patent as of July 1, 2011[,]” without factual support, was found to be conclusory and was therefore disregarded in the context of the motion to dismiss. Judge Burke also found that the complaint failed to adequately allege direct infringement by the defendant’s customers. Judge Burke explained that “the Complaint is silent even as to what it is that the customers are alleged to have actually done that is asserted to amount to the ‘use’ of” an infringing method. Instead, the complaint alleged only that the customers “use a method for distributing information to various locations in a digital network,” which simply “parrots [a portion] of the preamble of claim 9 of the ‘936 patent . . . it does not give any hint as to how the customers’ actions are said to relate to the content of the method-at-issue.” Finally, and relatedly, Judge Burke explained that the plaintiff’s allegation that the defendant specifically encouraged its customers to infringe through “instructions” on the defendant’s website (which were not recited in or attached to the complaint) was insufficient: “[i]n light of the lack of facts pled linking up any ‘instructions’ with conduct plausibly asserted to amount to direct infringement, the allegations as to this element, then, are insufficient as well.”
Trans Video Electronics, Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc., C.A. No. 12-1743-LPS (D. Del. Mar. 4, 2014).
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