Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1043_7648.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

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

11 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

cording to the Court, “Steele implicated both domestic con-
duct and a likelihood of domestic confusion,” so it offers no 
guidance in resolving this case.  Ante, at 8.  No court of ap-
peals has read Steele that way, and for good reason: Steele 
clearly  recognized  that  infringing  acts  consummated
abroad fall under the purview of the Lanham Act when they 
generate consumer confusion in the United States.  See su-
pra, at 2–3, 6–7.5  Finding Steele “of little assistance” to its 
blinkered approach, the majority reduces Steele to a “nar-
row” case with no application beyond its facts.  Ante, at 8. 
Steele is no such thing.  It addressed the weighty question
whether the Lanham Act “extend[s] beyond the boundaries 
of the United States,” 344 U. S., at 285, and has guided the 
lower  courts’  extraterritoriality  analysis  for  more  than  70 
years.  The Court should not “put aside” the Court’s prece-
dent merely because it is convenient to do so.  Ante, at 8. 

Because  the  Court  cannot  ground  its  holding  in  prece-
dent, it turns to abstract policy considerations.  According
to the majority, the focus of the Lanham Act cannot center 
on  consumer  confusion,  despite  Steele  and  the  statute’s 
clear textual clues, because any focus other than conduct is 
too  uncertain  and  “would  create  headaches  for  lower 
courts.”  Ante,  at  11.  The  Court’s  conclusion,  however,  is 
based on the incorrect assumption that “merely a likelihood 
of  an  effect  in  this  country”  would  be  sufficient  to  hold  a
defendant liable under the Act.  Ante, at 12 (emphasis de-

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5 It is true that Steele involved domestic conduct insofar as the defend-
ant exported watch parts from the United States into Mexico in prepar-
ing to affix the infringing mark abroad.  See 344 U. S., at 286.  Yet the 
act of exporting those watch parts with no affixed mark did not, without 
more, constitute an “illegal ac[t] within the United States.”  Id., at 282, 
287.  In contrast, the defendant committed infringing acts abroad: “[I]n 
Mexico  City  [he]  stamped  his  watches  with  ‘Bulova’  and  sold  them  as 
such.”  Id., at 285.  The Court also did not hold that domestic exportation
of unmarked product parts is necessary for the Lanham Act to cover for-
eign sales.