{"id":136221,"date":"2017-06-12T12:39:35","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T07:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=136221"},"modified":"2017-07-14T14:57:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T09:27:12","slug":"scotus-upholds-the-principle-of-international-patent-exhaustion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2017\/06\/12\/scotus-upholds-the-principle-of-international-patent-exhaustion\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS upholds the principle of International Patent Exhaustion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court of the United States:<\/strong> While relying upon the landmark decision in Kirtsaeng<\/em> v.\u00a0John Wiley & Sons, Inc<\/em>., 2013 SCC OnLine US SC 15<\/a>, the Supreme Court of United States has\u00a0held that a patentee cannot control a sold item through the patent laws since its patent rights are\u00a0exhausted in that item, regardless of any restrictions on resale or the location of the sale.<\/p>\n

The respondent, a proprietor of numerous toner cartridge patents, sold those cartridges to the\u00a0consumers either at full price, or at a discount through its \u201cReturn Program\u201d. The customers were\u00a0restricted from reusing or reselling the Return Program cartridges, and had to return them to the\u00a0respondent. Certain remanufacturers acquired empty toner cartridges\u2014including Return Program\u00a0cartridges\u2014from both, local and foreign purchasers, refilled them with toner, and then resold\u00a0them in the United States. The respondent sued these remanufacturers, including the petitioner,\u00a0for patent infringement contending that it had never authorized anyone to import its cartridges\u00a0and there was express prohibition on reuse and resale of Return Program cartridges. The Federal\u00a0Circuit had ruled in favour of the respondent, holding that a patentee could enforce clearly\u00a0communicated restrictions on reuse or resale through patent infringement lawsuits, and patent\u00a0rights were not exhausted merely because the products were sold overseas.<\/p>\n

Roberts, C.J. (with whom Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, And Kagan, JJ. agreed)\u00a0observed that the restrictions on resale or reuse of the Return Program Cartridges might be\u00a0enforceable under contract law, but they did not entitle the defendant to bring a patent\u00a0infringement suit against the petitioner, because, once the respondent sold those cartridges, it had\u00a0exhausted its right to control them through the patent laws. Moreover, an authorized sale outside\u00a0the United States, just as one within the United States, exhausted all rights under the Patent Act.<\/p>\n

The Court noted that the principle of patent exhaustion was meant to prevent restraints on\u00a0alienation, and nothing in the Patent Act indicated that Congress intended to confine that\u00a0principle to domestic sales. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal\u00a0Circuit was accordingly reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings.\u00a0[Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., 2017 SCC OnLine US SC 9 <\/a>:\u00a0581 U. S. ____ (2017), decided on\u00a0May 30, 2017]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court of the United States: While relying upon the landmark decision in Kirtsaeng v.\u00a0John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013 SCC OnLine <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":32691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[18421,18411],"class_list":["post-136221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-casebriefs","category-foreigncourts","tag-international-patent-exhaustion","tag-patent-rights"],"yoast_head":"\nSCOTUS upholds the principle of International Patent Exhaustion | SCC Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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