The Supreme Court in U.S delivered relief to troubled chemical manufacturers and commodity producers, the court declared that exporting a single commodity cannot trigger patent liabilities. This decision took place when a company was held liable for exporting a commonly used laboratory chemical.
The court rule stated that it does not comply with the requirement that an infringer export or a portion of the components needed to create a patented product. The government also filed a brief opposing the application of the law to a single component, as per Forbes.
Companies such as Agilent Technologies also filed a brief in the case, they feared that they might get tagged along for exporting goods that wound up in infringing products overseas. It turns out that patent law covers only products within the US. But a second section of the law covers a single product especially made or adapted for use in a patented device.
However, the court concluded that congress only covered "components." The court of appeal for patent cases reversed ruling a single component. The decision was penned by Justice Sotomayor as per Tech Site.
Doris Johnson Hines a partner with Finnegan in Washington said that this decision will clarify the law, but it will certainly leave unanswered questions. The court chose to go out with the concept of judging components by their quantity and not their qualities, Doris also stated that it is unclear to him what exactly is a component of a claimed invention is.
In response to a 1972 Supreme Court decision the Congress expanded the boundaries of offshore liability in Section 271(f) of the Patent Code. The decision of the US Supreme Court certainly brought a relief to all the chemical manufacturers in the country. The decision will ease out their problems that they have been facing.
