The Federal Circuit has declined to overturn a Delaware jury’s May 2016 verdict finding that a single mapping patent asserted by Art+Com Innovationpool GmbH against Google is invalid (1:14-cv-00217). Ruling on appeal in an October 20 opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision issued in that district court suit by Circuit Judge Timothy B. Dyk (who was sitting by designation) to deny Art+Com’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, agreeing that the jury’s finding that the asserted patent was anticipated by prior art had been properly supported by the evidence (2017-1016). Given its holding as to validity, the Federal Circuit did not revisit the part of the verdict finding noninfringement as to Google Maps.

A Delaware jury has returned a verdict of non-infringement for Alphabet (Google) in an lawsuit brought by Art+Com Innovationpool GmbH (1:14-cv-00217) over a single mapping patent (RE44,550). The German NPE had alleged that the company’s Google Maps product infringes the ‘550 patent through the manner in which it divides high-resolution map imagery into smaller sections called “tiles”. However, following a six-day trial, the jury found on May 27 that the Google service does not infringe the patent-in-suit. The jury further determined that Google had shown the asserted claims of the ‘550 patent are invalid as anticipated both by a third-party mapping system that predated Art+Com’s invention and by a paper published by the plaintiff over a year before the patent’s priority date.