No Liability for Inducing Non-Infringement

In JVC Kenwood Corporation v. Nero, Inc., 2014-1011 (August 17, 2015), the Federal Circuit held that if what the end user is doing does not constitute infringement (because of standards essential patents licensed to the end users), the inducing those end users to do something that is not infringement, is not inducing patent infringement.

JVC’s patents were part of a patent pool licensed to the manufacturers of DVD discs and disc drives.  Nero’s software helps the end users of licensed DVD discs and disc drives to burn and play the discs.  The end user’s use of the DVD discs and disc drives was not infringement because of a pool license to the manufactures of the discs and disc drives, so Nero’s actions in selling the software did not induce infringement.