Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Calibrate Networks LLC sued Lee Hecht Harrison LLC for allegedly infringing U.S. Patent No. 9,584,633. Its first amended complaint accused “containerization technologies such as Kubernetes” and incorporated a claim chart purporting to map the patent’s first method claim to the accused activity.
The allegations relied principally on job postings describing positions that required experience with Kubernetes and other third-party materials explaining how that technology works. Lee Hecht Harrison argued that the postings concerned jobs it was recruiting candidates to fill for third-party employers and did not show that Lee Hecht Harrison itself owned, operated, or used an infringing system.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that Calibrate failed to plausibly plead direct infringement. Because infringement of a method claim requires every claimed step to be performed by or attributable to a single entity, Calibrate needed facts showing who performed each step. Job postings for third-party employers, descriptions of third-party technology, and conclusory assertions that Lee Hecht Harrison and its employees used Kubernetes did not permit a reasonable inference that the defendant performed the patented method.
Because the complaint did not adequately plead an underlying act of direct infringement, the court also found the willful- and indirect-infringement theories insufficient. It nevertheless denied Lee Hecht Harrison’s request for dismissal with prejudice, concluding that one unsuccessful amendment did not establish repeated failure to cure or show that another amendment would necessarily be futile. The court dismissed the first amended complaint without prejudice and gave Calibrate 14 days to file a second amended complaint addressing the identified defects.
Key Takeaways
- A complaint asserting infringement of a method claim must plausibly identify who performed every claimed step.
- Third-party job postings and general descriptions of third-party technology do not, without a factual link to the defendant’s own conduct, establish a plausible direct-infringement theory.
- Absent adequately pleaded direct infringement, related claims for indirect and willful infringement cannot proceed.
- A single failed amendment did not justify dismissal with prejudice where undue delay, prejudice, repeated failure to cure, and futility had not been sufficiently established.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that patent plaintiffs cannot rely on generic references to widely used technology or a defendant’s recruiting materials to obtain discovery. The complaint must connect an identified accused system or activity to the defendant and allege facts showing performance of each limitation of the asserted method claim.
The order also illustrates the Eastern District of Texas’s application of Rule 15’s liberal amendment standard: even a substantively deficient patent complaint may receive another opportunity to cure when the record does not yet establish repeated pleading failures or futility.