This year’s notable U.S. Supreme Court patent decisions include opinions that: make it more difficult to file patent cases outside a domestic defendant's state of incorporation; prevent defendants from asserting laches as a defense within the six-year statute of limitations period; hold that supplying a single component of a multi-component invention for manufacture abroad does not give rise to §271(f)(1) liability; hold that overseas sales exhaust all patent rights; and make it harder for patentees to retain control over downstream use and resale of patented products.
Also notable is a Federal Circuit opinion that shifts the burden of proof in inter partes review proceedings from the patentee to the petitioner challenging the validity of a patent. The actual effect of that burden shift remains unclear, however.
Read the full article in Bloomberg BNA, Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal here.