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ABITRON AUSTRIA GMBH v. HETRONIC INT’L, INC. 

Syllabus 

(a) The  presumption  against  extraterritoriality  reflects 

the 
longstanding principle “that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary 
intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdic-
tion of the United States.”  Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 
561 U. S. 247, 255.  The presumption “serves to avoid the international
discord that can result when U. S. law is applied to conduct in foreign
countries” and reflects the “commonsense notion that Congress gener-
ally legislates with domestic concerns in mind.”  RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. 
European Community, 579 U. S. 325, 335–336.   

Applying  the  presumption  involves  a  two-step  framework,  which 
asks  at  step  one  whether  the  statute  is  extraterritorial.    This  step 
turns  on  whether  “Congress  has  affirmatively  and  unmistakably  in-
structed that” the provision at issue should “apply to foreign conduct.”  
Id.,  at  335.  If  Congress  has  provided  such  an  instruction,  then  the 
provision is extraterritorial.  If not, then the provision is not extrater-
ritorial and step two applies.  That step resolves whether a suit seeks 
a (permissible) domestic or (impermissible) foreign application of the 
provision.  That determination requires courts to identify the “focus” 
of congressional concern underlying the provision at issue, id., at 336, 
and then “as[k] whether the conduct relevant to that focus occurred in
United States territory,” WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., 
585  U. S.  ___,  ___.    Thus,  to  prove  that  a  claim  involves  a  domestic
application of a statute, “plaintiffs must establish that ‘the conduct rel-
evant to the statute’s focus occurred in the United States.’ ”  Nestlé USA, 
Inc. v. Doe, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (emphasis added).  Step two is designed 
to apply the presumption to claims that involve both domestic and for-
eign  conduct,  separating  the  activity  that  matters  from  the  activity 
that does not.  After all, the Court has long recognized that the pre-
sumption would be meaningless if any domestic conduct could defeat 
it.  See Morrison, 561 U. S., at 266.  Pp. 3–5.

(b) Neither provision at issue provides an express statement of ex-
traterritorial application or any other clear indication that it is one of
the  “rare”  provisions  that  nonetheless  applies  abroad.   Both  simply
prohibit the use “in commerce” of protected trademarks when that use 
“is likely to cause confusion.”  §§1114(1)(a), 1125(a)(1).  Hetronic main-
tains that the Lanham Act’s definition of “commerce”—“all commerce 
which may lawfully be regulated by Congress,” §1127—rebuts the pre-
sumption against extraterritoriality.  But this Court’s repeated hold-
ing that “ ‘even statutes . . . that expressly refer to “foreign commerce’ ” 
when  defining  “commerce”  are  not  extraterritorial,  Morrison,  561 
U. S., at 262–263, dooms Hetronic’s arguments.  Pp. 5–7.

(c) Because §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1) are not extraterritorial, the
Court must consider at step two when claims involve “domestic” appli-