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Federal Circuit Affirms Indefiniteness And Noninfringement Of Intelligent Distribution Network Patents
12/17/2025In Akamai Techs., Inc. v. MediaPointe, Inc., No. 24-1571 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 25, 2025), the Federal Circuit affirmed the Central District of California’s summary judgment determinations of indefiniteness and non-infringement. Akamai Technologies, Inc. sought a declaratory judgment of non-infringement of two patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 8,559,426 and 9,426,195, against AMHC, Inc., the owner of the patents, and its subsidiary, MediaPointe, Inc. (referred to collectively as “MediaPointe”). MediaPointe counterclaimed for infringement, and Akamai sought a declaratory judgment of invalidity.
The ’426 patent, and its continuation, the ’195 patent, which share a specification, describe and claim systems and methods for distributing streamed media content over the Internet to geographically dispersed users. In these systems and methods, data is streamed from a server by being transmitted over the Internet to a client, passing through various nodes and other devices. The patents explain that streams could become delayed by inefficient routes that require too many intermediate nodes and devices. The patents therefore provide for more efficient routing that utilizes a management center with a mapping engine to gather information about the system and to direct the data through the best route to reach the client.
During claim construction, the district court found that several claims reciting “best” or “optimal” routes and nodes are indefinite. Thereafter, Akamai moved to exclude portions of the proposed testimony of MediaPointe’s expert as untimely and moved for summary judgment of non-infringement of the surviving claims of the ’195 patent (the only surviving claims in the case). The district court granted both, and noted in its summary judgment decision that its noninfringement decision would apply regardless of whether the expert’s testimony was excluded.
Validity
The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s determination that the terms requiring “optimal” and “best” nodes/routes by mapping trace routes are indefinite because they are terms of degree that do not provide reasonably clear, objective boundaries for the claims. While the claim language identifies some objective metrics, such as hop counts, latency, and inferred reliability, the intrinsic evidence fails to supply clear boundaries on those metrics. For example, although the claim requires using trace routes between the management center, nodes, and client to determine optimal routes, the specification is clear that the analysis of trace routes is nonexclusive, and that other operator-specific factors could be considered as well. Further, the specifications provide no principled rule for reconciling divergent results. The specification recognizes that, in some instances, fewer hops might favor one route while lower latency would favor another, but offers no guidance on how to prioritize those factors to determine the best or optimal route.
The Court applied its past precedent that explains that, where multiple methods to determine whether a claim limitation is met may lead to different results without guidance as to which method should be used, a claim is indefinite. As MediaPointe failed to point to sufficient guidance in the specification to reconcile conflicting methods for determining whether a route is the best or optimal, the Court therefore found that the district court had properly determined that the claims are indefinite.
Infringement
The Federal Circuit also affirmed the district court’s exclusion of testimony from MediaPointe’s expert and its summary judgment finding that the surviving claims of the patents are not infringed by Akamai’s product.
The Court first considered MediaPointe’s challenge to the construction of the term “request for media content.” The Court rejected MediaPointe’s assertion that there are two reasonable meanings of the term that include both a user’s attempt to access content and a computing message, such as an HTTP request. Instead, the Court affirmed the district court and found that the relevant artisan would only have understood the term to refer to a computer message, relying on the fact that the claimed “request for media content” is required to be “received by a management center,” which clearly indicates that the term refers to computer messages.
Because MediaPointe’s arguments as to why summary judgment was improper rested entirely on its proposed construction that “request for media content” should also include attempts by a user to access content, the Court also affirmed the district court’s factual findings as to whether Akamai’s product infringed. In so doing, the Court noted that the district court had correctly determined that there was no triable issue of fact for a jury to determine, regardless of whether MediaPointe’s expert’s testimony was excluded or not.
