The U.S. Supreme Court at the end of the past term handed down a decision, Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., that greatly expanded the doctrine of patent exhaustion. This equitable doctrine prevents a...more
Last May, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a highly-anticipated decision in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark Int’l, Inc., reversing the Federal Circuit and holding that, when a patent holder sells a product, it exhausts all...more
Patent owners have long imposed post-sale restrictions on their patented goods and relied on U.S. patent laws to enforce these restrictions. For instance, companies have sought to enforce “single use” restrictions on their...more
The US Patent Act gives patent holders the right to prevent others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States. The premise behind...more
The Court also holds that patent exhaustion applies to both foreign and domestic sales in a historic decision. Key Points: ..Patent rights are exhausted by sale even if the patentee purports to impose post-sale...more
In 1628, Lord Coke in his “Institutes of the laws of England” summarized the common law on restraints on the alienation of chattels stating that any attempt by a seller to restrict resale or use of the chattel after selling...more
On May 30, 2017, in Impression Products, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a patent owner’s sale of an item, either within or outside the United States, exhausts all of the patent owner’s patent rights in that item,...more
Hailed by some as the “right to repair”, on May 30, 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that a seller’s patent rights are not valid beyond the first sale of the patented product. Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark Intern., Inc....more
Patent owners can no longer restrict the use of their patented products after the products are sold. Under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, a patent owner’s rights are “exhausted” once the patent owner sells the product. ...more
In a case of keen importance to sellers of refurbished products such as auto parts and medical devices, last month, in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., ___ U.S. ___ (2017), the Supreme Court of the...more
In a nearly unanimous opinion issued recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held “a patentee’s decision to sell a product exhausts all of its patent rights in that item, regardless of any restrictions the patentee purports to...more
On May 30, 2017, in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that a domestic or foreign sale of a patented product exhausts all U.S. patent rights in that product. The case was...more
In Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, No. 15–1189, 137 S. Ct. ___, 2017 WL 2322830 (May 30, 2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a patentee’s sale of a product exhausts all of its U.S. patent rights in...more
In Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that a patent owner's initial sale of a product, in the U.S. or in a foreign country, exhausts all of the U.S. patent rights in...more
An authorized sale exhausts all patent rights in the item sold. In Impression Products Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. No. 15-1189, May 30, 2017, the Supreme Court found that patent exhaustion is “uniform and...more
The Supreme Court last week issued its long-awaited decision regarding patent exhaustion in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International. The decision, which overturns longstanding Federal Circuit precedent, curtails...more
In Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., the Supreme Court held that after a patent holder sells a patented product, the patent holder cannot control the product by way of patent rights. United States...more
In Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., the Supreme Court reversed the en banc decision of the Federal Circuit, and held U.S. patents rights exhausted by the patent owner’s sale of a patented article...more
For the fifth time this session, and following fast on the heels of its landmark decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods earlier in May, the Supreme Court again reversed the Federal Circuit. The case, Impression Products,...more
On May 30, 2017, the Supreme Court limited a patent owner’s ability to control products after an authorized initial sale. In Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., the Court reversed long-standing...more
Manufacturers have long used patents, licenses and litigation to deter competitive products and restrict secondary markets in their products. The U.S. Supreme Court just dealt these practices a severe blow, confirming that a...more
The Supreme Court issued a 7-1 ruling in Impression Prod., Inc. v. Lexmark Int'l, Inc. that eliminated the ability for a patent holder (“patentee”) to enforce, through patent law, post-sale restrictions on an authorized...more
In the United States, once a patentee has sold its product—whether domestically or internationally—its patent rights in that product are exhausted; the patentee can no longer use patent law to control refurbishing or resale...more
On Tuesday, May 30, 2017, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Impression Prods., Inc. v. Lexmark Int’l, Inc., that eliminates a patentee’s patent rights in a product sold by the patentee. The Supreme Court held that “a...more
On May 30, the US Supreme Court issued a decision in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark Int'l, Inc., which changed the settled law of "international patent exhaustion"—whether a US patent infringement suit may be brought in...more