Federal Circuit Affirms Finding that “Best” or “Optimal” Language in Claims Is Indefinite

In Akamai Technologies, Inc., v. MediaPointe, Inc., No. 2024-1571 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 25, 2025), the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court decision invalidating claims as indefinite and granting summary judgment of noninfringement for all remaining claims.

Akamai sought declaratory judgment of noninfringement of two of MediaPointe’s patents related to routing streamed media content over the Internet. The district court invalidated the asserted patents for indefiniteness due to “optimal” and “best” language recited in each of the asserted independent claims. The district court found that the specification failed to provide details explaining how to consistently determine the “optimal” or “best” routes and did not include bounds for these terms when it listed a range of potentially relevant factors to consider. The district court also awarded summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Akamai, finding that MediaPointe presented insufficient evidence of infringement.

The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Court concluded that the patents lack the required objective boundaries for those skilled in the art to determine what is “optimal” or “best” because the patents fail to provide a reasonably clear and exclusive definition of these claim terms. The Court reiterated that when multiple methods for determining whether a claim limitation is met lead to different results, without any guidance as to which method should be used, a claim is indefinite. The Court rejected MediaPointe’s arguments that the district court improperly struck MediaPointe’s expert testimony and found insufficient evidence of infringement.