Source: https://www.weintraub.com/blogs/section-271f-does-not-apply-to-method-patents
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:17:37+00:00

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The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled a 2005 decision which addressed the liability of exporters of components of patented inventions for infringement of method patents. Under 35 U.S.C. §271(f), anyone who exports a component of a patented invention that is combined outside the United States is an infringer. The Court of Appeals, in Union Carbide Chemicals & Plastics Technology Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 425 F.3d 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2005), held that §271(f) applied to method patents. In Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. v. St. Jude Medical, Inc. 2009 WL 2516346 (Fed. Cir. 2009), an en banc decision on August 19, 2009, the Court of Appeals reversed its holding in Union Carbide.
Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. (“CPI”) owned several patents, including the ‘288 patent, which covered a method of using a device, an implantable cardioverter defribillator. CPI sued St. Jude Medical for patent infringment in 1996. After several appeals on various issues, the case was remanded to the district court.
The district court denied St. Jude’s motion for summary judgment limiting damages to U.S. sales of the device. The district court held that under §271(f), CPI was entitled to recover damages for the devices sold by St. Jude from the U.S. to foreign customers. St. Jude appealed.
A panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, based on Union Carbide. St. Jude petitioned for a rehearing en banc. The en banc court reversed the panel’s decision, holding that §271(f) does not apply to method patents.
The court reviewed the legislative history of section §271(f). That section was enacted to change the existing case law that held that manufacturers who shipped components of a patented device overseas, where the device was then assembled, were not infringers.
In Union Carbide, the court had held that the exportation of a chemical catalyst that was used in performing a patented method overseas constituted infringement under §271(f). The catalyst was a component of the patented invention.
In analyzing §271(f) as it applied to CPI’s device, the court said that the words of the statute should be giving their ordinary meaning. CPI argued that the term “patented invention” in §271(f) referred to all categories of inventions. The court disagreed.
The court held that process or method inventions consist of a series of steps and that the components of those inventions are the steps. The court further held that the steps of a method patent are not the same as the physical components used in performing the method.
The court noted that §271(c) refers to components of a machine or article of manufacture as being distinct from a material or apparatus used in practicing a patent method. Thus, the court found that Congress distinguished between components of a patented invention and the materials used in practicing a patented method. The components of a patented method are its steps, not the materials used to perform the method.
The court held that because the steps of a method cannot be “supplied,” as is required by §271(f), that section cannot apply to method patents. According to the court, it is impossible to supply an intangible step. The court specifically overruled the Union Carbide case.
In concluding, the court emphasized that its decision was consistent with the legislative history of the statute and with the Supreme Court’s presumption against the extraterritoriality of patents.

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