“This case presents the question whether a defendant may be liable for inducing infringement of a patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) when no one has directly infringed the patent under § 271(a) or any other statutory provision.”
“The statutory text and structure and our prior case law require that we answer this question in the negative. . . . A method patent claims a number of steps; under this Court’s case law, the patent is not infringed unless all the steps are carried out. . . . The Federal Circuit held in Muniauction[, Inc. v. Thomson Corp., 532 F.3d 1318 (2008)] that a method’s steps have not all been performed as claimed by the patent unless they are all attributable to the same defendant, either because the defendant actually performed those steps or because he directed or controlled others who performed them. Assuming without deciding that the Federal Circuit’s holding in Muniauction is correct, there has simply been no infringement of the method in which respondents have staked out an interest, because the performance of all the patent’s steps is not attributable to any one person. And, as both the Federal Circuit and respondents admit, where there has been no direct infringement, there can be no inducement of infringement under § 271(b)”
