It was not long ago that we at the blog noted Judge Andrews' declaration that "it doesn't require much to plead a claim for direct patent infringement."
Today's case gives us an example of a filing that failed to clear that bar in a rather interesting way.
The plaintiff in Tir Techs. Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Comms., LLC, C.A. No. 25-885-JCG, D.I. 48 (D. Del. Mar. 11, 2026), attached actual claim charts to their complaint. This is normally a positive for surviving a 12(b)(6).
The defendants, however, moved to dismiss because the claim charts actually charted infringement by third party Amazon Web Services. The charts and and complaint would then "include frequent variations of the following assertion that '[a] person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the Defendants would use similar functionality with other CDNs, including the CDN provided by Comcast Technology Solutions.'" Id. at 9 (quoting claim charts). In addition, the complaint alleged that much of the information necessary to chart Comcast's product was uniquely within Comcast's control (a common argument from the Raindance line of cases).
Judge Choe Groves, found this insufficient and granted the motion to dismiss:
Plaintiff’s claim charts may explain how Amazon’s products infringe the Asserted Patents, but Plaintiff does not explain separately how the accused Comcast CDN infringes the Asserted Patents. Plaintiff’s repeated assertions regarding the knowledge of a hypothetical person of ordinary skill in the art are not factual allegations describing how Amazon’s products function similarly to the accused products, but are rather the type of “mere conclusory statements” that are insufficient to state a claim of infringement.
Id. at 9-10.
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