Opinion ID: 3066230
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Modern Commission Practice

Text: Our post-1988 case law provides no better support for the majority’s interpretation. Although it is unclear which cases the majority believes supports its view, as it cites only two in passing, the government points to two cases that they argue demonstrate the Commission’s reliance on § 271(b) in an exclusion order: Alloc, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, 342 F.3d 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2003), and Kyocera Wireless Corp. v. International Trade Commission, 545 F.3d 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Br. of Int’l Trade Comm’n at 33 n.8. But neither case required us to determine if an exclusion order could be predicated solely on an intent to induce infringement. In Alloc, the Commission found no infringement, either direct or indirect, in imported flooring products, and we affirmed that determination. 342 F.3d at 1366–68, 1375. After construing the claims at issue, we agreed with the Commission that there was no evidence of direct infringement. Id. at 1373. As for induced infringement, we noted that the basis for the allegation of inducement was installation instructions included in the packaging at the time of importation. Id. at 1373–74. In a short discussion of induced infringement, we found “no reason to ‘Congress’ silence is just that — silence.”) (quoting Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 686 (1987)); Johnson v. Trans. Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 672 (1987) (Scalia, J., dissenting). 22 SUPREMA, INC. v. ITC disturb the administrative judge’s conclusion on induce- ment” specifically because “the administrative judge found no evidence of direct infringement.” Id. at 1374. Alloc does not demonstrate our approval of the Commission’s use of induced infringement to justify the exclusion order in the circumstances here, however; our silence there was not nearly as deafening as the government believes. That case did not involve uncertainty as to future infringement, and there was no challenge to the Commission’s authority regarding inducement claims. At best, we merely overlooked this issue in our analysis, and “I see no reason why [we] should be consciously wrong today because [we were] unconsciously wrong yesterday.” Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U.S. 611, 639–40 (1948) (Jackson, J., dissenting); cf. Vizio, 605 F.3d at 1343 (declining to analyze the Commission’s authority to base an exclusion order on induced infringement because “[a]ppellants do not challenge the Commission’s finding of infringement”); see also Maj. Op. at 25 (“Prior to this case, none of our reviews of the Commission’s determinations have questioned the Commission’s authority to investigate and find a violation of Section 337 predicated on an act of induced infringement.”). Kyocera also fails to provide any support for an interpretation of § 1337(a)(1)(B)(i) that would include induced infringement of method claims for potential postimportation direct infringement. Similar to Alloc, there was no challenge to the Commission’s authority regarding induced infringement allegations; we assumed without deciding that an exclusion order could be predicated on a finding of induced infringement under § 1337(a)(1)(B)(i). Kyocera, 742 F.3d at 1353–54; see also ERBE El- ektromedizin GmbH v. Int’l Trade Comm., 566 F.3d 1028, 1037 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (affirming Commission’s determination of no direct infringement, and therefore concluding there was “no basis for finding induced or contributory infringement,” without analyzing the Commission’s SUPREMA, INC. v. ITC 23 authority under § 1337(a)(1)(B)(i) to enter an exclusion order due to induced infringement). Our only discussion of induced infringement involved a short statement remanding the case to the Commission to perform the correct analysis under § 271 after we had altered the specific intent analysis in DSU. Kyocera, 742 F.3d at 1354. Importantly, our appellate review in Kyocera did not involve allegations of inducement predicated on potential post-importation direct infringement. See In the Matter of Certain Baseband Processor Chips and Chipsets, Transmitter & Receiver (Radio) Chips, Power Control Chips, & Products Containing Same, USITC Inv. No. 337TA-543, 2006 WL 3920334, at  (Oct. 10, 2006) (finding that Qualcomm “induces infringement of the apparatus claims” of U.S. Patent No. 6,714,983, but that “Broadcom has not proved that Qualcomm induced infringement of the method claims of the ’983 patent”). To the contrary, Kyocera involved the importation of wireless devices that were programmed to operate in an infringing manner prior to being imported. Id. at 1346 (noting that the Commission only excluded devices from manufacturers who “purchase[d] and incorporate[d] Qualcomm chips into their mobile wireless devices outside the United States, and then imported them into the United States for sale”). Although the Commission relied on an induced infringement theory for infringement of apparatus claims, the imported articles directly infringed at the time of importation. They were the quintessential “articles that—infringe.”