Key Points

• District of New Jersey dismisses willful, induced, and contributory infringement claims with prejudice, holding that pre‑issuance communications, patent families, and publicity did not establish required knowledge.
• Court permits direct patent infringement claims to proceed based on adequately pleaded allegations involving a “class” of accused software products, without element‑by‑element detail.
• Court may consider consolidation where parties’ arguments and briefs are nearly identical and same infringement claims remain, even without perfect overlap in parties.

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey has again pared a WinView patent infringement suit down to its direct infringement claims, dismissing WinView's willfulness and indirect infringement theories with prejudice.

The decision in WinView IP Holdings, LLC v. FanDuel, Inc. closely tracks the March 2026 ruling in a parallel case against DraftKings that we previously discussed.

The opinion is a useful follow-on for companies and counsel tracking how the DNJ is applying pleading standards to willful and indirect patent infringement — particularly the recurring question of whether knowledge gained from the filing of a complaint can support those claims.

Background

Plaintiff WinView IP Holdings, LLC, a company involved in "mobile gaming and interactive television," accused FanDuel, Inc. and affiliated entities of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 10,721,543 (the '543 patent) and 10,806,988 (the '988 patent), which relate to “distributed gaming and mobile technology, including real-time bookmaking, geographic integration, and specific solutions to manage simultaneous contest participation.”

WinView's Second Amended Complaint (SAC) asserted direct, willful, induced, and contributory infringement of both patents against four FanDuel products. FanDuel moved to dismiss the direct infringement claim as to the '543 patent and the willfulness and indirect infringement claims as to both patents; it did not challenge the direct infringement claim for the '988 patent.

Direct Infringement Claim Survives

The Court found that the SAC plausibly pleaded direct infringement of the '543 patent and allowed that claim to proceed. The Court rejected FanDuel's argument that the newly accused FD Racing and FD Casino products were inadequately pleaded, crediting allegations that the accused products share “relevant functionality” — including “server operation, location monitoring, cloud hosting, and continuous comparison and communication of assets.”

The Court also rejected FanDuel's "grouping limitation" argument that the SAC failed because it did not “specifically allege that the Accused Products send users a second set of assets grouped into necessary and preferred assets.” The Court explained that WinView adequately alleged how the accused products group assets into "necessary" and "preferred" sets and that, in any event, the absence of the exact claim language was not fatal at the pleading stage.

The Court distinguished cases requiring element-by-element pleading, which relied upon the Federal Circuit’s decision in Disc Disease Solutions Inc. v. VGH Solutions, Inc. that involved "simple technology" and only four independent patent claims. In contrast, the Court observed that the '543 patent includes more than 100 claims and involved complex technology. Further, WinView had done more than “nakedly allege” infringement and had put FanDuel on adequate notice of how the Accused Products were alleged to infringe.

Willful and Indirect Infringement Claims Dismissed with Prejudice

The Court dismissed WinView's willfulness claims for both patents, finding the SAC failed to plausibly allege FanDuel's pre-suit knowledge of the patents or of its allegedly infringing conduct. WinView's allegations of pre-issuance dealings with FanDuel, including 2017 communications and 2019 discussions under an NDA, were insufficient because they predated issuance of the patents-in-suit, which issued in July and October 2020. Quoting Federal Circuit precedent, the Court observed, "it is obvious a party cannot be held liable for 'infringement,' and thus not for 'willful' infringement, of a nonexistent patent." Allegations that FanDuel knew of related patent family members, that the parties were competitors, and that WinView publicized its patents were likewise inadequate without "other allegations" bridging that knowledge to knowledge of the issued patents. Critically, the Court reaffirmed that pre-suit knowledge cannot be established by, or subsequent to, the filing of the complaint, and that WinView's July 25, 2025 notice letter (sent after suit was filed) did not change that result. In addition, the Court found that even if FanDuel did have pre-suit notice of the patents, the SAC lacked sufficient allegations for the Court to infer that “FanDuel knew or should have known that its conduct amounted to infringement.”

The Court dismissed the induced and contributory infringement claims for the same reason: both theories “require knowledge of the patent and knowledge of infringement,” which WinView failed to adequately plead. Because WinView did not allege the requisite knowledge, the Court did not reach the parties' arguments about specific intent or the absence of substantial non-infringing uses.

Lastly, the Court explained that it was dismissing the willful and indirect infringement claims with prejudice, concluding that further amendment would be futile after WinView's repeated failures to cure the same pleading deficiencies across multiple complaints, including those in the parallel suit against DraftKings. The Court emphasized the "dearth of allegations" regarding FanDuel's knowledge of the patents or alleged infringement after issuance and before suit.

Striking Overlap with the DraftKings Decision and a Signal on Consolidation

As we discussed in our write-up of the Court's ruling in WinView's parallel case against DraftKings, the Court reached materially the same outcome — preserving direct infringement while dismissing the willfulness and indirect theories on knowledge grounds. The FanDuel opinion repeatedly relies on the Court's two prior DraftKings rulings, one of which the Court noted WinView itself cited throughout its briefing, and which were issued months before the SAC was filed in this case.

In a notable footnote, the Court observed that "[t]he parties' arguments and briefs in this matter are nearly identical to those made and considered by this Court upon a Motion to Dismiss in a parallel case brought by WinView against a similar gaming company defendant," cataloguing the side-by-side correspondence among the moving briefs, oppositions, and replies in the two cases.

Looking ahead, the Court flagged the prospect of consolidation. Noting further that after this ruling, "the same infringement claims remain in both cases," the Court observed that it "has broad discretion to consolidate like matters sua sponte, even when 'there is not a perfect overlap in parties.'" Given the similarities of the motion to dismiss decisions, the Court may opt to consolidate the matters if nearly identical issues or motions are raised to the Court.

Paul W. Kalish and Jonathan J. Madara are members of the IP Litigation team in Fox Rothschild’s Princeton, NJ office and write about patent litigation decisions in the District of New Jersey. Contact Paul at pkalish@foxrothschild.com or 609.895.6751 and Jonathan at jmadara@foxrothschild.com or 609.844.7428.

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