Patent Exhaustion or “First Sale Doctrine” Under U.S. law, once an unrestricted, authorized sale of a patented article occurs, a patent holder cannot assert a claim for patent infringement based on the subsequent use or sale of that article.

The “authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder’s rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking patent law to control post-sale use of the article.”

Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc., 553 U.S. 617, 638 (2008)

In This Presentation:

1. The doctrine of patent exhaustion or first sale doctrine

2. Quanta v. LGE clarified the rules of patent exhaustion

3. Discussion of recent court decisions applying patent exhaustion after Quanta

Topics to be discussed:

a. Sale of incomplete articles

b. What constitutes an “authorized sale”

c. Conditioned sales and license restrictions

d. Sales outside the United States

4. Practical implications

Please see full presentation below for more information.