Court Opinion

ID: 9478008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:36:45.315762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:09.873202
License: Public Domain

BAILEY BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The majority opinion holds that, under the Supreme Court’s opinion in Brulotte, 379 U.S. at 32, the question of whether the license provision that would require payment of royalties after the patents have expired is a void provision is to be resolved in this case only by a consideration of the terms of the license and that other evidence of the motivation of the parties with respect to leverage is irrelevant. I am not sure that this is a correct reading of Brulotte. However, the panel of this court on the prior appeal clearly did hold that the issue was to be determined solely by the terms of the license and did hold that, in the light of the terms of that agreement, the requirement of payment of royalties after patent expiration was unenforceable. Boggild, 776 F.2d at 1320. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. 477 U.S. 908 (1986). This is the law of this case, and I therefore concur in the result that there be no remand for the taking of proof as to the state of mind of the parties with respect to the use of leverage.
In all other respects I agree with the majority opinion as written.