Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1043_7648.pdf
Page Number: 29.0

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

product or the location of the trademark owner’s business
(contrary to petitioners’ and respondent’s views here).

The Court’s precedent also supports the view that an ap-
plication of a statute can be considered domestic even when 
foreign conduct is implicated.  In Morrison, for example, the
Court concluded that §10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act
of 1934, 48 Stat. 891, “does not punish deceptive conduct,
but only deceptive conduct ‘in connection with the purchase 
or  sale  of ’ ”  securities  in  the  United  States.    561  U. S.,  at 
266  (quoting  15  U. S. C.  §78j(b)).    Thus,  “the  focus  of  the 
Exchange  Act  is  not  upon  the  place  where  the  deception 
originated, but upon purchases and sales of securities in the 
United  States.”  561  U. S.,  at  266.    “Those  purchase-and-
sale transactions are the objects of the statute’s solicitude.” 
Id.,  at  267.   Under  Morrison,  a  domestic  application  of
§10(b) covers misrepresentations made abroad, so long as
the deceptive conduct bears the requisite connection to the 
statute’s focus: the domestic purchase or sale of a security.
Similarly, under §§32(1)(a) and 43(a)(1)(A) of the Lanham 
Act, uses of a mark in commerce are actionable when they
cause  a  likelihood  of  consumer  confusion  in  the  United 
States, even when the conduct originates abroad. 

II 
The  Court  agrees  with  petitioners’  bottom  line  that  the
Lanham  Act  requires  a  domestic  “use  in  commerce.”    See 
ante, at 7–10.  According to the majority, the “ ‘use in com-
merce’  provides  the  dividing  line  between  foreign  and  do-
mestic applications of these Lanham Act provisions.”  Ante, 
at 10.  Yet the majority does not actually take a stance on 
the focus of the Act or apply this Court’s settled law.  In-
stead, to reach its conclusion, the majority transforms the 
into  a  myopic
Court’s  extraterritoriality 
conduct-only test.
  Specifically, instead of discerning the statute’s focus and 
assessing whether that focus is found domestically, as the 

framework