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A significant situation has reached the U.S. Supreme Court that on the surface could expose high-tech firms to higher liability for patent infringement in regard to specified products assembled and sold overseas. Even so, based on the tenor of the comments and concerns by a majority of the Justices of the Court in the course of oral arguments, it appears that there will be no significant shift in policy in regard to patent infringement when a item is assembled and sold off the shores of the United States.
Historically, U.S. organizations could escape liability for manufacturing and promoting items that developed and sold in the U.S. would constitute actionable patent infringement with no negative consequences. Even so, all of this might modify when the U.S. Supreme Court hands down a selection in the seminal situation of Microsoft Corporation v. AT&T Corp. The situation in this situation is the actual scope of the exception to the rule imposing liability for patent infringement. That exception had permitted an entity or individual to avoid a patent infringement suit components for a patented invention were supplied to an assembler in one more country, provided the final product was sold in another nation.
AT&T is arguing in the situation before the nation's highest court that Microsoft is carrying out just that by causing that company's digital speech processor technologies to be assembled and sold in an additional country. Microsoft is countering that no component as contemplated by the law is involved. Rather, Microsoft contends that only directions directing the laptop or computer how to carry out the digital speech processing are included in the Microsoft package being assembled and sold overseas. Microsoft maintains that AT&T needs to obtain foreign patents to safeguard its interests.
For the duration of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, Justices Souter and Bryer each expressed concern that a ruling in favor of AT&T would expose a lot of high-tech enterprises to liability under the U.S. patent infringement laws.
The only apparent support for AT&T's position during the oral arguments just before the U.S. Supreme Court came from Justice Kennedy. He said that he did have sympathy for the AT&T position with regards to the component situation that was raised just before the Court. The Chief Justice has recused himself from the case.
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