August 31, 2021

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had occasion to address the pleading requirements for patent infringement claims in Bot M8 LLC v. Sony Corp. of Am., 4 F.4th 1342 (Fed. Cir. July 13, 2021).  In addition to reiterating that patentees are not required to prove their case at the pleading stage, the Court held that, contrary to the district court’s view, patentees are not required to plead infringement on an element-by-element basis and that, to the extent any district court has adopted a blanket element-by-element pleading standard for patent infringement, “that approach is unsupported and goes beyond the standard the Supreme Court articulated in Iqbal and Twombly.” Id. at 1352.  The Court explained that “a plausible claim must do more than merely allege entitlement to relief; it must support the grounds for that entitlement with sufficient factual content.” Id.  The Court observed that “[t]he level of detail required in any given case will vary depending upon a number of factors, including the complexity of the technology, the materiality of any given element to practicing the asserted claim(s), and the nature of the alleged infringing device.” Id. at 1352-53  Thus, a claim for patent infringement is not plausible under the Iqbal/Twombly standard if it merely recites the claim elements and concludes that the accused product has those elements. Id.  Instead, there must be “some factual allegations that, when taken as true, articulate why it is plausible that the accused product infringes the patent claim.” Id. at 1353.  Applying the clarified standard to the district court’s order dismissing Bot M8’s claims as to four of six asserted patents, the Court agreed that for two of the asserted patents, the claims as pleaded were conclusory and at times contradictory, and concluded that the district court did not err in dismissing these claims. Id. at 1353-55.  Dismissal of the claims related to the other two patents was found erroneous. Id. at 1355-56.  Here, the Court found that the district court “simply required too much.” Id. at 1353, 1355-56.