Extraterritorial Patent Enforcement and Multinational Patent Litigation: Proposed Guidelines for U.S. Courts

Note — Volume 93, Issue 5

93 Va. L. Rev. 1259
Download PDF

Patent law is traditionally territorial in scope. With recent additions to the Patent Act, Congress, however, has taken action to expand the effective territorial scope of U.S. patents. Moreover, courts, in interpreting this recent legislation, have exhibited a willingness to expand further the reach of U.S. patent law. Concurrent with Congress’s and the judiciary’s struggle to resolve these questions regarding the territoriality of U.S. patents, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently faced the question of whether U.S. courts should adjudicate claims based on foreign patents. The reluctance of U.S. courts to adjudicate foreign patent claims is inconsistent with recent decisions that seek to stretch U.S. patent law even further and with foreign courts that have adjudicated foreign patent claims. Given that an increasing number of entities hold patents on the same inventions in multiple jurisdictions, multinational patent litigation inevitably will continue to be a crucial issue in international patent law. This Note fills a gap in the academic literature by undertaking an examination of both extraterritorial patent enforcement and multinational patent litigation. This Note brings together divergent strands of research by examining both extraterritorial patent enforcement and multinational patent litigation. Ultimately, this Note suggests that courts should consider enforcing foreign patents in certain situations instead of trying to apply U.S. patents extraterritorially.

Click on a link below to access the full text of this article. These are third-party content providers and may require a separate subscription for access.

  Volume 93 / Issue 5  

Mediating Rules in Criminal Law

By Richard A. Bierschbach and Alex Stein
93 Va. L. Rev. 1197

Extraterritorial Patent Enforcement and Multinational Patent Litigation: Proposed Guidelines for U.S. Courts

By Kendra Robins
93 Va. L. Rev. 1259

Rethinking Ableman v. Booth and States’ Rights in Wisconsin

By Jeffrey Schmitt
93 Va. L. Rev. 1315

“The Dean of Chicago’s Black Lawyers”: Earl Dickerson and Civil Rights Lawyering in the Years Before Brown

By Jay Tidmarsh & Stephen Robinson
93 Va. L. Rev. 1355