In Mankes v. Vivid Seats Ltd., [2015-1500, 2015-1501, 2015-1909] (April 22, 2016), the Federal Circuit vacated judgment on the pleadings against Mankes, and remanded for further proceedings in light of Akamai IV.

The case involved U.S. Patent No. 6,477,503 on methods for managing a reservation system that divides inventory between a local server and a remote Internet server.  It was stipulated that no none person performed all of the steps of any single claim of the patent.  However, the defendants; arguments of non-infringement, and the district court’s determination were before the most rececent version of Akamai (Akamai IV).  The Federal Circuit said that:

“We need not say how much broadening occurred in Akamai IV. In the present cases, the district court’s rulings and the arguments of Fandango and Vivid Seats to the district court were squarely based on the earlier, narrower standard.”

The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the case, and rejected defendants’ appeal of the denial of attorneys fees for good measure.