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Supreme Court Limits Patent Liability for Component Makers in Global Supply Chain

By Scott Graham
March 02, 2017

In a decision that should please American manufacturers that feed into the global supply chain, the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted a 33-year-old law that imposes patent liability on components made in the U.S. for assembly overseas.

A unanimous Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ruling that shipping a single component cannot trigger a provision of Section 271(f) of the Patent Act which applies to “all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention” that are combined abroad.

The decision on February 22 in Life Technologies v. Promega, No. 14-1538, wipes out a $52 million jury verdict for Promega Corp. endorsed by the Federal Circuit. The appellate court had ruled that the taq polymerase supplied by Life Technologies Inc. for DNA profiling kits assembled abroad met the “substantial” requirement because taq polymerase is the main component of the kits. See, Promega v. Life Technologies, Nos. 2013-1011, 1029, 1376 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 15, 2014).

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