Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-697_d1o2.pdf
Page Number: 62.0

Cite as:  568 U. S. ____ (2013) 

21 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

after Quality King Brief).15  Accordingly, the United States
has  steadfastly  “taken  the  position  in  international  trade 
negotiations  that  domestic  copyright  owners  should  . . . 
have the right to prevent the unauthorized importation of 
copies of their work sold abroad.”  Id., at 22.  The United 
States  has  “advanced  this  position  in  multilateral  trade 
negotiations,”  including  the  negotiations  on  the  TRIPS 
Agreement.  Id.,  at  24.  See  also  D.  Gervais,  The  TRIPS 
Agreement:  Drafting  History  and  Analysis  §2.63,  p.  199
(3d ed. 2008).  It has also taken a dim view of our trading 
partners’  adoption  of  legislation  incorporating  elements
of  international  exhaustion.  See  Clapperton  &  Corones,
Locking  in  Customers,  Locking  Out  Competitors:  Anti-
Circumvention  Laws  in  Australia  and  Their  Potential 
Effect  on  Competition  in  High  Technology  Markets,  30
Melbourne  U.  L. Rev.  657,  664  (2006)  (United  States
expressed concern regarding international-exhaustion leg- 
islation in Australia); Montén, Comment, The Inconsistency 
Between  Section  301  and  TRIPS:  Counterproductive 
With  Respect  to  the  Future  of  International  Protection
of  Intellectual  Property  Rights?  9  Marq.  Intellectual 

—————— 

15 The Court states that my “reliance on the Solicitor General’s posi­
tion in Quality King is undermined by his agreement in that case with 
[the] reading of §109(a)” that the Court today adopts.  Ante, at 33.  The 
United  States’  principal  concern  in  both  Quality  King  and  this  case, 
however, has been to protect copyright owners’ “right to prevent paral­
lel imports.”  Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Quality King, 
O. T. 1997, No. 96–1470, p. 6 (hereinafter Quality King Brief).  See also 
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14 (arguing that Kirtsaeng’s 
interpretation  of  §109(a),  which  the  Court  adopts,  would  “subver[t] 
Section 602(a)(1)’s ban on unauthorized importation”).  In Quality King, 
the Solicitor General urged this Court to hold that §109(a)’s codification
of the first sale doctrine does not limit the right to control importation
set  forth  in  §602(a).    Quality  King  Brief  7–30.    After  Quality  King
rejected  that  contention,  the  United  States  reconsidered  its  position,
and  it  now  endorses  the  interpretation  of  the  §109(a)  phrase  “lawfully 
made under this title” I would adopt.  Brief for United States as Amicus 
Curiae 6–7, 13–14.