Supreme Court of the United States: Brief of American intellectual property law association as Amicus curiae in suport of respondent

摘要

AIPLA believes that a patentee may, with adequate notice, require separate licenses at various stages along the downstream chain of sophisticated purchasers and users of its patented invention. Not only does this create market efficiencies, but it also allows for the appropriate and proper exploitation of intellectual property rights. There is no per se anti-competitive effect in allowing licensors and licensees the freedom to create such agreements. The parties and Amid have characterized the relationship between LG and Intel as essentially that of licensor and licensee. And while that is literally correct, and frames much of the analysis set forth below, AIPLA submits that it mischaracterizes a significant portion of the transaction at issue. Morefundamentally, it skews the analysis and even the Question Presented to this Court for review by ignoring the real-world context of what occurred. Any decision must account for the Constitutional balance between the public's interest in accessing technology and promoting innovation. AIPLA believes that license obligations can require an agreed-upon allocation of burdens to obtain specific additional agreements as between sophisticated parties.