Is the Supreme Court Poised to Assess the Extraterritorial Scope of US Patent Law?

摘要

In Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling v Maersk Contractors USA, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit expanded the scope of infringement for offering to sell an invention in two ways, first by expanding the extraterritorial reach of US patents and, second, by permitting infringement based on diagrams alone. The US Supreme Court has requested the views of the Solicitor General as to whether the court should review the decision, a strong indication of the court's interest in reviewing the case. This article examines these holdings.