Supreme Court Limits Patent Infringement Liability for Some Software Exports
May 16, 2007
In a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court in Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp, No. 05-1056, 2007 WL 1237838, at *1 (U.S. April 30, 2007), significantly limited infringement liability for foreign activities, finding that exporting software for use in a patented product does not trigger infringement under the U.S. Patent Act when the patented product is made abroad using foreign-made copies of the exported software.
Although U.S. patent law generally does not extend protection to cover a patented product made and sold in another country, section 271(f) of the Patent Act provides an exception where the components of a patented product are exported from the United States for "combination" abroad. AT&T owns a patent directed to a computer apparatus for digitally encoding and compressing recorded speech. Microsoft conceded that its Windows operating system ("Windows") when installed on a computer manufactured in the U.S. infringes AT&T's patent. Microsoft, however, disputed that it was liable for infringement for installation of copies of Windows on computers produced outside the U.S.
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