Weisner v. Google LLC

Background

Sholem Weisner and Shmuel Nemanov brought patent-infringement claims against Google LLC. The amended complaint identified certain features within Google Maps and alleged that they infringed the asserted patent claims.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that a patent-infringement complaint must plausibly allege that the accused product practices each limitation of at least one asserted patent claim. It must provide factual detail beyond merely repeating the elements of an infringement claim or stating that identified products infringe.

The court found that the amended complaint did not describe the Google Maps features with enough particularity or compare those features with the features required by the patent claims. The allegations therefore were conclusory and insufficient.

The court also found that the complaint did not plausibly identify Google as the infringer. The claims involved multiple actors, including users, vendors, and a GPS provider. The allegation that the claim steps were performed by Google, its customers, purchasers, users, and developers—or some combination of them—was not enough. The complaint did not plausibly allege that Google controlled the system and benefited from it, or otherwise satisfy the requirements for attributing the acts of multiple actors to Google.

Because the complaint did not adequately allege direct infringement, the court held that the claims for indirect infringement could not be sustained either.

Ruling

Judge Hellerstein granted in part Google’s motion to dismiss without prejudice. The court dismissed all of the plaintiff’s infringement claims and allowed the plaintiff to replead within 20 days.