Our Patent Case Summaries provide a weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
EscapeX IP, LLC v. Google LLC
No. 2024-1201 (Fed. Cir. (N.D. Cal.) Nov. 25, 2025). Opinion by Stark, joined by Taranto and Stoll.
EscapeX sued Google for patent infringement in the Western District of Texas. Google requested that EscapeX voluntarily dismiss the case because the accused features either did not exist in the accused products or, for the features that did exist, those features predated the patent’s priority date. When EscapeX failed to respond to Google’s request, Google moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, which the court granted.
In a separate case in the Southern District of New York, all claims of the Asserted Patent were found patent ineligible under § 101, which EscapeX did not appeal. Subsequently, in the Northern District of California, EscapeX filed a “joint stipulation of dismissal” of the case without Google’s permission that incorrectly represented Google’s agreement to bear its own costs and fees. After Google objected, EscapeX withdrew the stipulation and filed a corrected version. Google then moved for attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285, arguing that EscapeX’s claims were frivolous. The district court found that EscapeX had failed to conduct an adequate pre-suit investigation, pressed frivolous claims, and ignored repeated notice of the claims’ baselessness, and awarded Google $191,302.18 in fees and costs.
EscapeX moved to amend the judgment under Rule 59(e), submitting two declarations as “newly discovered evidence” of its pre-suit investigation. After the district court denied the motion, Google sought additional attorneys’ fees and costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 and 35 U.S.C. § 285, arguing that EscapeX’s Rule 59(e) motion was frivolous and unreasonably multiplied the proceedings. The district court agreed, awarding Google an additional $63,525.30 and holding EscapeX and its attorneys jointly and severally liable.
EscapeX appealed the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees to Google and the denial of EscapeX’s motion to amend the judgment. The Federal Circuit affirmed.
The Federal Circuit first rejected EscapeX’s assertion that the degree of deference given to the district court is somehow related to the amount of time the court presided over the case, explaining that adopting such a standard “would perversely suggest that a party could act in an otherwise sanctionable manner for a brief time and suffer no consequences.”
Relying on the notice of either noninfringement or invalidity provided by Google to EscapeX, the court then ruled that there was no clear error in the district court’s finding that EscapeX filed frivolous claims. The court also rejected EscapeX’s argument that its status as a non-practicing entity was improperly weighed, clarifying that the district court’s reasoning focused on deterrence and the frivolous nature of EscapeX’s claims.
The court next rejected EscapeX’s appeal of the district court’s denial of its Rule 59(e) motion, reasoning that EscapeX’s proffered declarations did not constitute newly discovered evidence as they could have been presented earlier. The Federal Circuit also affirmed the district court’s sanctions against EscapeX and EscapeX’s attorneys’ that had been granted as it relates to that motion. The court clarified that an “attorney’s obligation to zealously advocate for a client is not a license to ignore other duties, such as conducting an adequate pre-suit investigation and refraining from filing frivolous motions” and that counsel in this case could have avoided such sanctions by simply not filing such a motion.
Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. MediaPointe, Inc.
No. 2024-1571 (Fed. Cir. (C.D. Cal.) Nov. 25, 2025). Opinion by Taranto, joined by Stoll and Cunningham.
Akamai Technologies sought a declaratory judgment of noninfringement of two patents owned by MediaPointe. MediaPointe counterclaimed with allegations of infringement, and Akamai added claims of invalidity. During claim construction, the district court held that claims reciting “optimal” and “best” language were invalid for indefiniteness. For the remaining asserted claims, the district court granted summary judgment of noninfringement. First, the court excluded as untimely key portions of MediaPointe’s technical expert’s testimony, without which MediaPointe could not reasonably establish infringement. Second, the court ruled that, even with expert testimony, Akamai was entitled to summary judgment of noninfringement.
MediaPointe appealed the district court’s finding of indefiniteness, the grant of summary judgment of noninfringement, and the exclusion of expert testimony. The Federal Circuit affirmed the first two, and so did not reach the exclusion issue.
As to indefiniteness, the Federal Circuit held that the “optimal” and “best” claim limitations were indefinite under § 112(b). The court first determined that the “optimal” and “best” language is plainly language of degree, which requires reviewing the written description to determine whether the terms are definite. The court next explained that a “term is not definite merely because the specification ‘identif[ies] some standard for measuring the scope of the [term].” Rather, what is required are “objective boundaries for those of skill in the art.” In this case, because neither the claims nor the specification provided a reasonably clear and exclusive definition of the terms “optimal” and “best” that would provide an objective boundary, the court held that the claims were indefinite.
On the issue of noninfringement, the Federal Circuit explained that MediaPointe’s challenge rested on the idea that the district court incorrectly construed a limitation requiring “receiving an initial request for media content from a first client, the request being received by the management center.” MediaPointe argued that this term had a broad understanding that captured “a user’s attempt to access media content.” The Federal Circuit explained that for claim terms that are not expressly construed, “a jury is entitled to give that limitation any reasonable meaning in determining, as a factual matter, what comes within its scope.” In this case, the Federal Circuit explained that the district court was required give this issue to the jury “only if ‘request for media content’ [could] reasonably bear MediaPointe’s relied-on meaning.” In affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment, the Federal Circuit concluded that a relevant artisan could not reasonably have understood the claim language, considered in the context of the patent, to refer to anything other than a computer message.
The Federal Circuit did not reach the issue of exclusion of expert testimony, as the summary judgment of noninfringement was independently supported by the insufficiency of MediaPointe’s evidence.