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KickerLJN NewslettersNewsSectionsThe Intellectual Property Strategist

Federal Circuit Clarifies the Limits Of Patent Exhaustion

BY Matthew Sumida
April 02, 2015

The Federal Circuit recently clarified the limits of patent exhaustion as it applies to “authorized acquirers” and “complementary goods,” holding in Helferich Patent Licensing, LLC v. New York Times Co., No. 2014-1196 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 10, 2015), that authorized sales to persons (i.e., handset manufacturers and users) practicing handset claims did not exhaust a patent owner's rights to enforce distinct but related content claims against defendant content providers who manage and deliver content to handset users.

Background

The plaintiff Helferich is the owner of more than 30 United States patents. One subset of Helferich's patent claims is generally directed to wireless communication devices that request and/or receive content (“handset claims”). Another subset of Helferich's patent claims is generally directed to storing, updating and sending information to wireless devices (“content claims”). As characterized by the Federal Circuit, it is content providers ' not handset users ' that practice Helferich's content claims.

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