The court granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favour of Salesforce. Judge Alan D. Albright held that claims 1 and 5 of U.S. Patent No. 9,088,493 — and all dependent claims — are not infringed by Salesforce’s Journey Builder product. Final judgment was entered on 16 December 2024 after 1,459 days of litigation.

US9088493B2 covers network path-selection and routing methods, originating from Nokia’s IP estate. WSOU Investments asserted that the orchestration and routing logic in Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Journey Builder — which automates customer engagement workflows — practised the patent’s claims. The court ultimately found no infringement on summary judgment.

WSOU Investments is a patent assertion entity that acquired and monetises a large portfolio of patents originating from Nokia’s R&D programs. WSOU has filed numerous infringement actions against major technology companies. The Salesforce case is one of several in which WSOU mapped legacy telecom patents onto enterprise cloud software products to assert infringement claims.

The judgment is specific to Salesforce’s Journey Builder and the construed claims of the ‘493 patent. It does not directly bind other defendants. However, the public summary judgment record and any claim construction findings create a useful reference for other companies facing similar assertions from WSOU, and may inform noninfringement or invalidity arguments in future cases involving the same patent.

The final judgment explicitly states that counsel was notified of the premature appeal issue before filing. This suggests WSOU’s counsel attempted to appeal before the final judgment was formally entered, which would deprive the appellate court of jurisdiction. The court’s notation serves as a procedural marker that the final judgment — not any earlier order — starts the clock for post-trial motions and a proper appeal.