Indiana Intellectual Property Law News

The Supreme Court on December 6, 2016, heard oral argument on whether the export by Roche, which has an office in Indiana, of an enzyme triggers patent infringement.  Roche’s customer Life Technologies imported Roche’s “AmpliGold Plus” enzyme into the United Kingdom, and used it to build genetic testing kits.  Life Technologies did not sell the kits in the US.  However, Promega Corp. sued it for vicarious patent infringement (inducing or contributing to patent infringement) claiming that by purchasing enzyme in the US, Life Technologies violated 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(1).  This provision of the patent Act makes it an infringement to supply abroad “all or a substantial portion of the components.” The Federal Circuit had earlier held that the AmpliGold Plus enzyme, met the requirement of a “substantial” portion of the components. The Supreme Court seemed to agree that “substantial” may be ambiguous, but some Justices suggested that supply of a single component was more properly considered under Section 271(f)(2), which addresses the supply of a non-staple, specially made component. Promega distinguished (f)(1) and (f)(2) as exporting counterparts to Section 271(b) induced infringement and §271(c) contributory infringement, respectively.  The transcript of the hearing is below.

Transcript-Life-v-Promega

Overhauser Law Offices, the publisher of this site, assists with US and foreign patent searches, patent applications and assists with enforcing patents via infringement litigation and licensing.

The U.S. Patent Office issued the following 237 patent registrations to persons and businesses in Indiana in November 2016, based on applications filed by Indiana patent attorneys:

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The Supreme Court on December 2, 2016, agreed to review an en banc Federal Circuit decision that no changes to the Federal Circuit’s law of patent exhaustion are required by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 1351 (2012), and Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc., 553 U.S. 617 (2008).  Impression Products, Inc., v. Lexmark International, Inc., U.S., No. 15-1189, cert. granted 12/2/2016.

En Banc Federal Circuit Decision

In a 10-2 decision, the en banc Federal Circuit held that a patentee, when selling a patented article subject to a single-use/no-resale restriction that is lawful and clearly communicated to the purchaser, does not by that sale give the buyer, or downstream buyers, the resale/reuse authority that has been expressly denied. 816 F.3d 721 (2016).  It also held that a U.S. patentee, merely by selling or authorizing the sale of a U.S.-patented article abroad, does not authorize the buyer to import the article and sell and use it in the United States, which are infringing acts absent patentee-conferred authority. Judge Dyk filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Judge Hughes, generally agreeing with the position argued in the government’s amicus brief.

The Justice Department told the Federal Circuit (and later the Supreme Court in urging review) that foreign sales may exhaust patent rights unless the patentee reserves its rights, and that Mallinckrodt Inc. v. Medipart, Inc., 976 F.2d 700 (Fed. Cir. 1992), should be overruled because it erroneously held that patentees can impose servitudes on chattels with post-sale restrictions.

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