Process Claims, Know Your Infringer

Many inventions reside in novel processes, rather than the product produced by a process, the materials or equipment used in performing the process, or even the individual steps of the process. In many cases, a well-crafted process claim can keep the most threatening competitors at bay or be highly lucrative for purposes of licensing and generating royalty income. What happens when individual steps are practiced by different individuals or parties? Is there such a thing as joint infringement? A recent court decision addresses this question in the context of web sites and the servers where the web site contents are stored, but it is applicable to industrial processes in general.