Suffolk Technologies, LLC v. AOL, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
752 F.3d 1358, 110 U.S.P.Q.2d 2034 (2004)
- Written by Eric Miller, JD
Facts
Suffolk Technologies, LLC (Suffolk) (plaintiff) sued Google, Inc. (defendant) and AOL, Inc. (defendant) in federal district court, alleging infringement of Suffolk’s patent (the ‘835 patent) for a means of operating a file server. AOL settled. Google contended that the ‘835 patent was anticipated by a post on a Usenet newsgroup—a kind of discussion board popular on the Internet of the 1990s—concerning an interface specification. The writer of the original post called himself a “newbie” and prefaced a question by stating that it “might seem ridiculous.” The question was answered with relevant technical information from other newsgroup users. Suffolk argued that the post’s audience did not consist of people of ordinary skill in the art and that locating the post was too difficult for the post to be considered a printed publication. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Google. Suffolk appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Prost, J.)
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