ATLANTA, GA – Coca-Cola has prevailed in a patent lawsuit over its Freestyle beverage dispensers after a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that the company did not infringe a patent held by Rothschild Connected Devices Innovations, LLC.
In a decision issued October 21, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment of noninfringement. The case stems from Rothschild’s claim that Coca-Cola’s smart drink dispensers violated U.S. Patent No. 8,417,377, which outlines a system for dispensing beverages based on user preferences transmitted to and from a server.
At the center of the dispute was claim 11 of the patent, which describes a communication module that must (1) transmit a user’s identity and beverage choice to a server, (2) receive user-generated drink preferences from the server, and then (3) communicate those preferences to a controller. The lower court found that these steps must be performed in that specific order and that Coca-Cola’s system did not operate in that way.
The Federal Circuit agreed, stating that the logical and grammatical structure of the claim, as well as the patent’s specification, supports the requirement for a particular sequence of operations. As Coca-Cola’s Freestyle dispensers did not follow that sequence, the appeals court found no infringement.
Rothschild also argued the court erred by declining to consider an alternate infringement theory involving Coca-Cola’s mobile app under the doctrine of equivalents. The appeals court found no error, citing procedural rules and Rothschild’s failure to include the theory in its initial contentions.
The appeal was filed under Case No. 24-1253 from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, presided over by Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr.
