Court Opinion

ID: 9428050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:38.797412+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:11.429729
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Marshall, and Mr. Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
For decades this Court, has denied relief from contributory infringement to patent holders who attempt to extend their patent monopolies to unpatented materials used in connection with patented inventions. The Court now refuses to apply this “patent misuse” principle in the very area in which such attempts to restrain competition are most likely to be successful. The Court holds exempt from the patent misuse doctrine a patent holder’s refusal to license others to use a patented process unless they purchase from him an unpatented product that has no substantial use except in the patented process. The Court’s sole justification for this radical departure from our prior construction of the patent laws is its interpretation of 35 U. S. C. § 271, a provision that created exceptions to the misuse doctrine and that we have held must be strictly construed “in light of this Nation’s historical antipathy to monopoly,” Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U. S. 518, 530 (1972). The Court recognizes, as it must, that § 271 does not on its face exempt the broad category of nonstaple materials from the misuse doctrine, yet construes it to do so based *224on what it has gleaned from the testimony of private patent lawyers given in hearings before congressional Committees and from the testimony of Department of Justice attorneys opposing the bill. The Court has often warned that in construing statutes, we should be “extremely wary of testimony before committee hearings and of debates on the floor of Congress save for precise analyses of statutory phrases by the sponsors of the proposed laws.” S&E Contractors, Inc. v. United States, 406 U. S. 1, 13, n. 9 (1972). We have expressed similar reservations about statements of the opponents of a bill: “The fears and doubts of the opposition are no authoritative guide to the construction of legislation. It is the sponsors that we look to when the meaning of the statutory words is in doubt.” Schwegman Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384, 394-395 (1951). NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58, 66 (1964). Here, nothing in support of the Court’s novel construction is to be found in the Committee Reports or in the statements of those Congressmen or Senators sponsoring the bill. The Court focuses only on the opposing positions of nonlegislators, none of which I find sufficient to constitute that “clear and certain signal from Congress” that is required before construing the 1952 Patent Act tp extend the patent monopoly beyond pre-existing standards.
I
All parties to this litigation, as well as the courts below, agree that were it not for § 271 (d), respondent’s refusal to license the use of its patent except to those who purchase unpatented propanil from it would be deemed patent misuse and would bar recovery from contributory infringement. 599 F. 2d 685, 688 (CA5 1979). In a long line of decisions commencing with Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502 (1917), this Court has denied recovery to patent holders who attempt to extend their patent monopoly to unpatented materials used in connection with patented inventions. In Motion Picture Patents the Court held that *225a license to use a patented motion picture projector could not be conditioned on the purchase of unpatented film from the patent holder. The Court emphasized that
"the exclusive right granted in every patent must be limited to the invention described in the claims of the patent and that it is not competent for the owner of a patent ... to, in effect, extend the scope of its patent monopoly by restricting the use of it to materials necessary in its operation but which are no part of the patented invention,” id., at 516.
Accordingly, the Court refused to enforce the patent against contributory infringers because “it would be gravely injurious to [the] public interest,” which it deemed “more a favorite of the law than is the promotion of private fortunes.” Id., at 519.1
The “patent misuse” doctrine, as it came to be known, was further enunciated in Carbine Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., 283 U, S. 27 (1931). In Carbice the Court unanimously denied relief for contributory infringement where a patentee required users of its combination patent to purchase from its exclusive licensee unpatented material (dry ice) that was an essential component of the patented com*226bination (a container for transporting frozen goods). The Court acknowledged that the owner of the process patent properly could “prohibit entirely the manufacture, sale, or use of such packages,” or “grant licenses upon terms consistent with the limited scope of the patent monopoly” and “charge a royalty or license fee.” However, the Court concluded that the patent holder “may not exact as the condition of a license that unpatented materials used in connection with the invention shall be purchased only from the licensor; and if. it does so, relief against one who supplies such unpatented materials will be denied.” Id., at 31. The Court deemed immaterial the fact that “the unpatented refrigerant is one of the necessary elements of the patented product,” for the patent holder had “no right to be free from competition in the sale of solid carbon dioxide” (dry ice) and “this limitation, inherent in the patent grant, is not dependent upon the peculiar function or character of the unpatented material or on the way in which it is used.” Id., at 33. If the owner of a combination patent were permitted to restrain competition in “unpatented materials used in its manufacture,” then “[t]he owner of a patent for a machine might thereby secure a partial monopoly on the unpatented supplies consumed in its operation.” Id., at 32.
In Leitch Mfg. Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U. S. 458 (1938), the Court, without dissent, denied relief to the holder of a process patent who licensed only those who purchased from it an unpatented material used in the patented process. Rather than expressly tying the grant of a patent license to purchase of unpatented material, the patent holder in Leitch merely sold unpatented materials used in the patented process, thereby granting purchasers an implied license to use the patent. The Court deemed this distinction to be “without legal significance” because “every use of a patent as a means of obtaining a limited monopoly of unpatented material is prohibited.” Id., at 463. The Court emphasized that the patent misuse doctrine “applies whatever the nature of the *227device by which the owner of a patent seeks to effect such unauthorized extension of the monopoly.” Ibid.
Four years later, the Court, again without dissent, applied the patent misuse doctrine to prohibit recovery against a direct infringer by a patent holder who required purchasers of a patented product to buy from it unpatented material for use in the patented product. Morton Salt Co. v. G. S. Suppiger Co., 314 U. S. 488 (1942). In a companion case the Court denied relief from contributory infringement to a patent holder who licensed only those who purchased from it an unpatented component product specially designed for use in the patented process. B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 314 U. S. 495 (1942). In B. B. Chemical the lower courts had rejected the patent owner’s attempt to distinguish previous patent misuse cases as involving efforts to control the use of staple materials with substantial noninfringing uses. 117 F. 2d 829, 834-835 (CA1 1941). This Court affirmed without dissent, holding that the patent misuse doctrine barred relief “in view of petitioner’s use of the patent as the means of establishing a limited monopoly in its unpatented materials,” B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, supra, at 497, and necessarily rejecting petitioner’s position that patent misuse was limited to staple products and did not apply when the alleged in-fringer went beyond selling an unpatented staple material and manufactured and sold materials useful only in the patented construct.2 The Court rejected the patent holder’s argument *228that it should be able to license only purchasers of the unpat-ented material because this was the only practicable way to exploit its process patent. “The patent monopoly is not enlarged by reason of the fact that it would be more convenient to the patentee to have it so, or because he cannot *229avail himself of its benefits within the limits of the grant.” 314 U. S., at 498. However, the Court reserved the question whether the patent misuse doctrine would apply if the patent holder also was willing to license manufacturers who did not purchase from it the unpatented material. Ibid.3
These decisions established, even before this Court’s decisions in the Mercoid cases, Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U. S. 661 (1944) (Mercoid I), and Mercoid Corp. v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., 320 U. S. 680 (1944) (Mercoid II), that the patent misuse doctrine would bar recovery by a patent holder who refused to license others to use a patented process unless they purchased from him an unpatented product for use in the process.4 Such *230conduct was deemed patent misuse because it involved an attempt to extend the patent monopoly beyond the scope of the invention to restrain competition in the sale of unpatented materials. This conduct was deemed misuse regardless of whether it was effected by means of express conditions in patent licenses or by a policy of granting only implied licenses to purchasers of unpatented materials, and even though unpat-ented materials “tied” to the license had no use other than as an integral part of the patented structure.
II
Respondent’s conduct in this case clearly constitutes patent misuse under these pre-Mercoid decisions because respondent refuses to license others to use its patented process unless they purchase from it unpatented propanil. The fact that respondent accomplishes this end through the practice of granting implied licenses to those who purchase propanil from it is as devoid of legal significance to alter this conclusion as it was in Leitch Mfg. 302 U. S., at 463, and B. B. Chemical, 314 U. S., at 498. Moreover, the fact that propanil is a nonstaple product having no substantial use except in the patented process has been without significance at least since B. B. Chemical and only serves to reinforce the conclusion that respondent is attempting to extend the patent monopoly to unpatented materials. Because propanil has no substantial noninfringing use, it cannot be sold without incurring liability for contributory infringement unless the vendor has a license to sell propanil or its vendee has an unconditional license to use the patented process. Respondent’s refusal to license those who do not purchase propanil from it thus effectively *231subjects all competing sellers of propanil to liability for contributory infringement. As the Court recognizes, ante, at 201, if this conduct is not deemed patent misuse, respondent will acquire the ability “to eliminate competitors and thereby to control the market” for propanil even though propanil is unpatented, unpatentable, and in the public domain.5 This would permit an even more complete extension of the patent monopoly to a market for unpatented materials than would result from a patentee’s attempts to control sales of staples that have substantial alternative uses outside of the patented process.
Ill
Despite the undoubted exclusionary impact of respondent’s conduct on the market for unpatented propanil, the Court holds that such conduct no longer constitutes patent misuse solely because of congressional enactment of 35 U. S. C. § 271. Section 271 is no stranger to this Court. Our previous attempts to construe this statute have been guided by the principle that “we should not expand patent rights by overruling or modifying our prior cases construing the patent statutes, unless the argument for expansion of privilege is based on more than mere inference from ambiguous^ statutory language.” Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U. S., at 531. “[I]n light of this Nation’s historical antipathy to monopoly,” we have concluded that “[w]e would require a clear and certain signal from Congress before approving the position of a litigant who, as respondent here, argues that the beachhead of privilege is wider, and the area of public use narrower, than courts had previously thought.” Id., at 530, 531. These principles are not less applicable to, and should *232resolve the statutory question presented in, this case, because as the Court concedes, the language of § 271 (d) does not itself resolve the question and because nothing in the legislative materials to which the Court is forced to turn furnishes the necessary evidence of congressional intention.6
Section 271 (d) provides:
“No patent owner otherwise entitled to relief for infringement or contributory infringement of a patent shall be denied relief or deemed guilty of misuse or illegal extension of the patent right by reason of his having done one or more of the following: (1) derived revenue from acts which if performed by another without his consent would constitute contributory infringement of the patent; (2) licensed or authorized another to perform acts which if performed without his consent would constitute contributory infringement of the patent; (3) sought to enforce his patent rights against infringement or contributory infringement.”
The plain language of § 271 (d) indicates that respondent’s conduct is not immunized from application of the patent misuse doctrine. The statute merely states that respondent may (1) derive revenue from sales of unpatented propanil, (2) license others to sell propanil, and (3) sue unauthorized sellers of propanil. While none of these acts can be deemed patent misuse if respondent is “otherwise entitled to relief,” the statute does not state that respondent may exclude all competitors from the propanil market by refusing to license all those who do not purchase propanil from it. This is the very conduct that constitutes patent misuse under the tradi*233tional doctrine; thus the fact that respondent may have engaged in one or more of the acts enumerated in § 271 (d) does not preclude its conduct from being deemed patent misuse.
The Court of Appeals conceded that the foregoing would be “a plausible construction” of the statutory language, 599 F. 2d, at 688,7 yet it chose instead to interpret subsection (d)(1) as granting respondent the “right to exclude others and reserve to itself, if it chooses, the right to sell nonstaples used substantially only in its invention.” Id., at 704. The court based this conclusion on the reasoning that “the rights to license another to sell [nonstaple] unpatented items would be rendered worthless if the only right conferred by (d)(1) were the right to sell the item as one competitor among many freely competing.” Id., at 703. This reasoning not only ignores the fact that royalties may be collected from competitors selling unpatented nonstaples, who still must obtain licenses from the patentee,8 but it also is fundamentally inconsistent with the congressional policy “to preserve and foster competition” in the sale of unpatented materials, a policy that, as we have recognized, survived enactment of § 271. Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., supra, at 530; Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 365 U. S. 336 (1961) (Aro I); Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 377 U. S. 476 (1964) (Aro II). Subsection (d)(1) leaves respondent free to “deriv[e] revenue” from sales of propanil *234without thereby being deemed guilty of patent misuse; but it does not free respondent to derive monopoly profits from the sale of an unpatented product by refusing to license competitors that do not purchase the unpatented product from it.9
The Court acknowledges that respondent refused to license others to sell propanil, but it observes that “nothing on the face of the statute requires it to do so.” Ante, at 202; cf. ante, at 213-214. As much could be conceded, but it would not follow that respondent is absolved from a finding of patent misuse. Section 271 (d) does not define conduct that constitutes patent misuse; rather it simply outlines certain conduct that is not patent misuse. Because the terms of the statute are terms of exception, the absence of any express mention of a licensing requirement does not indicate that respondent’s refusal to license others is protected by § 271 (d). This much seems elementary.10
*235Nor does the legislative history of § 271 (d) indicate to me that Congress intended to exempt respondent’s conduct from application of the patent misuse doctrine. This Court has already addressed this subject and there is at least a rough consensus on the impetus for the congressional action. In Aro II, supra, at 492, we held that “Congress enacted § 271 for the express purpose of reinstating the doctrine of contributory infringement as it had been developed by decisions prior to Mercoid, and of overruling any blanket invalidation of the doctrine that could be found in the Mercoid opinions. See, e. g., 35 U. S. C. §§271 (c), (d); Hearings [on H. R. 3760 before Subcommittee No. 3 of House Committee on the Judiciary, 82d Cong., 1st Sess.], 159, 161-162; and the Aro I opinions of Me. Justice Black, 365 U. S., at 348-349, and nn. 3-4; Mr. Justice Harlan, id., at 378, n. 6; and Mr. Justice Brennan, id., at 365-367.” As Mr. Justice Black stated in Aro I, § 271 (d) “was designed specifically to prevent the Mercoid case from being interpreted to mean that any effort to enforce a patent against a contributory infringer in itself constitutes a forefeiture of patent rights,” 365 TJ. S., at 349, n. 4 (concurring opinion).
As these passages indicate, and as all parties agree, the impetus for enactment of § 271 was this Court’s decisions in the Mercoid cases. Each case involved a suit by the owner of a combination patent seeking relief for contributory infringement against a company that had sold an unpatented article useful only in connection with the patented combination. Unlike the situation in B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 314 U. S. 495 (1942), the alleged contributory infringer in each case had refused an offer of a license “to make, use, and sell” components of the combination patent that was not condi*236tioned upon the purchase of unpatented materials. Mid-Continent Investment Co. v. Mercoid Corp., 133 F. 2d 803, 810 (CA7 1942); Mercoid II, 320 U. S., at 682-683. Despite their offers to license, this Court denied relief on the grounds that the patentees were misusing their patents to extend the scope of the patent monopoly to unpatented articles useful only in connection with the patents. Mr. Justice Douglas, speaking for the Court in Mercoid I, concluded: “The result of this decision, together with those which have preceded it, is to limit substantially the doctrine of contributory infringement. What residuum may be left we need not stop to consider.” 320 U. S., at 669.
In light of the Court’s suggestion that the doctrine of contributory infringement might not have survived Mercoid I, there was “[considerable doubt and confusion as to the scope of contributory infringement,” H. R. Rep. No. 1923, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 9 (1952); S. Rep. No. 1979, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 8 (1952). This confusion was understandable because the Mer-coid decisions for the first time had applied the patent misuse doctrine to situations where contributory infringers had refused to accept patent licenses that were not conditioned on the purchase of unpatented materials from the patentee. As was indicated in Aro II, supra, at 492, the express purpose for the legislation was to reinstate the doctrine of contributory infringement that existed prior to Mercoid and to overrule any implication that Mercoid made the mere act of suing for contributory infringement a form of patent misuse.
The Court nevertheless follows a course quite at odds with the Court’s prior approach to the construction of § 271. Conceding that the language of the section will not itself support its result, the Court turns to the legislative history of the section. It discovers nothing favoring its position in the Committee Reports, the floor debates, or in any materials orig-nating with the legislators who sponsored or managed the bill or who had any other intimate connection with the legislation. The Court is left with the opinions of private patent attorneys *237as to the meaning of the proposed legislation and with the hearing testimony of representatives of the Department of Justice opposing the bill. We have generally been reluctant to rely on such citations for definitive guidance in construing legislation;11 and we should not do so here, particularly when it means departing from the standards announced in our prior cases for construing the 1952 legislation.
However that may be, the testimony of the patent attorneys given in Committee hearings does not support the Court's broad holding that Congress intended to give patent holders complete control over nonstaple materials that otherwise would be in the public domain. Section 271 (c) does declare that selling a material or apparatus for use in practicing a patented process, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing that the material or apparatus is especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, is contributory infringement, so long as the material or apparatus is not a staple article or commodity of commerce. Making or selling nonstaples especially made or adapted for use in practicing a patent is contributory infringement; but making or selling staples is not, however useful in practicing a patent.12 But it does not follow that the patentee is never subject to the defense of patent misuse when he seeks to control the sale of a nonstaple used in connection with his patent. Section 271 (d) specifies precisely what acts he may perform with respect to the nonstaple and not be guilty of patent misuse. As the principal witness on whom the Court relies explained, these acts were specified as exceptions to what otherwise might have been considered patent misuse under the Mercoid decision. Hearings on H. R. 3760 before Subcommittee No. 3 of the *238House Committee on the Judiciary. 82d Cong., 1st Sess., 161— 162 (1951) (hereinafter 1951 Hearings).
The Court offers little to support its position that § 271 (d) was intended to put nonstaples completely beyond the reach of the misuse doctrine. Otherwise, § 271 (c) could simply have stated that the patentee could have his appropriate remedies against contributory infringement as defined in the section without regard to the defense of patent misuse. Of course, this is precisely the result the Court arrives at, but this extends the exemption far beyond what the Committees were told § 271 (d) would effect. Indeed, the representations were that, aside from the exemptions spelled out in § 271 (d), a patentee’s control of nonstaples would be subject to the doctrine of patent misuse. Ibid.
It is also apparent that the private patent attorneys understood the 1952 Act as not destroying the defense of patent misuse but as confining the defense to its pve-Mercoid reach. As I have said, B. B. Chemical denied a patentee relief in connection with a nonstaple article but left open whether the same would be true if licenses were available to but were refused by the alleged infringers. In Mercoid I, as the patentee in that case emphasized in its brief here, Brief for Respondent Mid-Continent Investment Co., O. T. 1943, Nos. 54 and 55, pp. 31, 39, the defendant-infringer had repeatedly refused licenses, but the Court nevertheless held that the misuse defense barred relief. To this extent, § 271 overturned Mercoid and intended to arm the patentee with the power to sue unlicensed contributory infringers selling nonstaple components used in connection with the patented process. But I do not understand the Committee witnesses, when pressed in the 1951 Hearings, to suggest that § 271 (d) authorized the patentee to condition the use of his process on purchasing the unpatented material from him and to exclude from the market all other manufacturers or sellers even though they would be willing to pay a reasonable royalty to the patent owner. For example, after listening to the witness, a member of the Committee *239stated: “In other words, all [§ 271 (d)] says is that bringing an action against someone who is guilty of contributory infringement is not a misuse of the patent.” The witness’s response was: “That is true.” 1951 Hearings, at 169.
I have no quarrel with this reading of § 271, but such reading falls far short of insulating the patentee from the misuse defense when he refuses licenses to competing manufacturers of an unpatentable nonstaple and conditions use of his patented process on the user’s buying the nonstaple from the patentee itself, thereby employing his patent to profit from the manufacture and sale of an article in the public domain. This was patent misuse before Mercoid, and I fail to find convincing evidence in the congressional materials to indicate that Congress intended to overturn the prior law in this respect.13 It is apparent that the Court overstates the legislative record when it says, ante, at 213, that Congress was told not only that contributory infringement would be confined to nonstaples but also that § 271 would exempt the control of such goods from the scope of patent misuse. I find no statement such as this among those quoted or cited by the Court.14
*240I should add that even if the applicability of the patent misuse doctrine to nonstaple materials was not settled until Mercoid, overturning Mercoid where the infringer refused a license, would not resolve the case where, as here, the patentee refuses licenses to others and reserves to itself the entire market for the unpatentable, nonstaple article lying in the public domain. It may be true, as the Court emphasizes, ante, at 197, that the concepts of contributory infringement and patent misuse rest on antithetical foundations, but it does not follow that the price of their coexistence inevitably must be the wholesale suppression of competition in the markets for unpatentable nonstaples.
The Court offers reasons of policy for its obvious extension of patent monopoly, but whether to stimulate research and development in the chemical field it is necessary to give pat-entees monopoly control over articles not covered by their patents is a question for Congress to decide, and I would wait for that body to speak more clearly than it has.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

 The Court rejected the argument that the licensing scheme was justified because it reduced the cost of the patented invention. The Court noted:
“It is argued as a merit of this system of sale . . . that the public is benefited by the sale of the machine at what is practically its cost and by the fact that the owner of the patent makes its entire profit from the sale of the supplies with which it is operated. This fact, if it be a fact, instead of commending, is the clearest possible condemnation of, the practice adopted, for it proves that under color of its patent the owner intends to and does derive its profit, not from the invention on which the law gives it a monopoly but from the unpatented supplies with which it is used and which are wholly without the scope of the patent monopoly, thus in effect extending the power to the owner of the patent to fix the price to the public of the unpatented supplies as effectively as he may fix the price on the patented machine.” 243 U. S., at 517.

 The patent involved in B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis covered a process for reinforcing shoe insoles by applying to them strips of reinforcing material coated with an adhesive. Rather than expressly licensing shoe manufacturers to use the patented process, the patentee sold them pre-coated reinforcing material which had been “slit into strips of suitable width for use by the patented method,” 314 U. S., at 496, thereby granting purchasers implied licenses to use the patent. The patentee argued in the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that application of the patent misuse doctrine is limited “to those situations in which the alleged contributory infringer supplies staple articles of commerce.” 117 F. 2d 829, 834 (1941). As the Court of Appeals noted, the patentee “insists that where the articles *228supplied are specially manufactured for use in this particular [patented] process, relief is not to be denied the patentee no matter what his course of business.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals, expressly agreeing with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and disagreeing with the contrary view of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, rejected this view. It noted: “The language of [Leitch Mfg. Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U. S. 458 (1938), and Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., 283 U. S. 27 (1931),] is extremely comprehensive and is by no means restricted to staple articles. . . . There is every indication that the Carbice and Leitch cases apply to specially designed non-patented articles. . . . [T]he emphasis is on the fact that the articles sold by the alleged contributory infringers were not covered by the plaintiff’s patent although it conducted its business as though they were.” Id., at 834-835.
The patentee-petitioner pursued the staple-nonstaple distinction in its petition for certiorari, arguing that the patent misuse principle of Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., supra, and Leitch Mfg. Co. v. Barber Co., supra, should not bar relief because the unpatented materials furnished by the defendants were not “staple articles of commerce” but rather were “especially designed and prepared for use in the process of the patent.” Pet. for Cert., O. T. 1941, No. 75, p. 10. It also noted the conflict among the Courts of Appeals with respect to nonstaples and patent misuse and urged that certiorari be granted on this basis. The Court granted certiorari, and the Court of Appeals was affirmed over petitioner’s arguments that the patent misuse doctrine should not bar relief when the defendant did more than make and sell an unpatented staple. Brief for Petitioner, O. T. 1941, No. 75, pp. 21-22. Petitioner’s brief also called attention to the conflict in the cases, id., at 36-37, and both respondents and the United States as amicus curiae argued that nonstaples, as well as staples, were subject to the misuse doctrine. Brief for Respondents, O. T. 1941, No. 75, pp. 11-12; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae, O. T. 1941, No. 75, pp. 12-13. The issue was plainly not abandoned and was part and parcel of petitioner’s argument that defendant went beyond selling a staple by manufacturing and selling materials expressly designed for and usable only as part of the patented use. The argument was rejected on the authority of the companion ease, Morton Salt Co. v. G. S. Suppiger Co., 314 U. S. 488 (1942).

 Two years after B. B. Chemical, in Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U. S. 661 (1944), and Mercoid Corp. v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., 320 U. S. 680 (1944), the Court was confronted with the question reserved in B. B. Chemical: whether the patent misuse doctrine would apply to a patent holder whose offers to license contributory infringers had been refused.

 Although the Court is willing to concede that B.B. Chemical “arguably involved an application of the misuse doctrine to an attempt to control a nonstaple material,” ante, at 194, n. 12, it subsequently states that “among the historical precedents in this Court, only . . . Leeds & Catlin [Co. v. Victor Talking Machine Co., 213 U. S. 325 (1909),] and [the] Mercoid cases bear significant factual similarity to the present controversy.” Ante, at 198. The latter statement is particularly puzzling because B. B. Chemical, like this case, involved a patentee’s initial refusal to license others to sell nonstaples, while Mercoid, unlike this case, involved a contributory in-fringer’s refusal to accept proffered licenses.
Moreover, the Court implies, ante, at 195, n. 13, that until Mercoid, there was division in the Courts of Appeals with regard to whether the patent misuse doctrine applied to patentees attempting to control nonstaple items. Yet all of the authorities the Court cites are pre-B. B. Chemical, and it is apparent that in B. B. Chemical as in Mercoid, the Court treated staple and nonstaple materials alike insofar as patent misuse was concerned. It is especially interesting that the Court cites J. C. Ferguson Works v. American Lecithin Co., 94 F. 2d 729, 731 (CA1), cert. denied, 304 U. S. 573 (1938), as a decision supporting the inapplicability of the misuse doctrine to efforts to control nonstaples. That case was a decision *230by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the same Court of Appeals in B. B. Chemical expressly indicated that its decision in J. C. Ferguson did not imply that the patent misuse doctrine was inapplicable to a patentee’s efforts to control nonstaples. 117 F. 2d, at 834-835. In B. B. Chemical the Court of Appeals held that the patent misuse doctrine applied to nonstaples as well as staples, and this Court affirmed.

 Respondent’s efforts to use its process patent to exclude, in effect, pro-panil from the public domain are particularly ironic because in prior litigation respondent successfully maintained, when sued for infringement, that propanil was unpatentable for lack of novelty. Monsanto Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co., 456 F. 2d 592 (CA3 1972).

 Although the Court acknowledges that we previously have construed § 271, ante, at 215-220, it ignores the principles of statutory construction followed in those cases apparently because the cases did not involve the precise question presented in this case. The Court fails to explain, however, why the need for “a clear and certain signal from Congress” is any less urgent in this case.

 The Court of Appeals noted not only that petitioner’s interpretation of § 271 was “plausible,” but also that it is supported by numerous commentators, that “the legislative history [of §271] is not crystal clear,” and that this Court’s subsequent construction of § 271 “cut against” its reading of the statute. 599 F. 2d, at 688, 703, 705-706, and n. 29.

 Because respondent may collect royalties on these licenses, the right to license competing sellers of propanil is not without economic value. In any event, even if it is more efficient or more profitable for respondent to collect its returns by exacting monopoly profits from the sale of propanil, this does not justify extension of the patent monopoly to the market for unpat-ented materials. B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 314 U. S., at 498; see n. 1, supra.

 Like the Court of Appeals, this Court concludes that, despite the silence of the statutory language, § 271 (d) must “effectively confer upon the patentee, as a lawful adjunct of his patent rights, a limited power to exclude others from competition in nonstaple goods.” Ante, at 201. While it recognizes the anticompetitive impact of such a holding, the Court bases its conclusion on the assertion that the patentee’s “power to demand royalties from others for the privilege of selling the nonstaple items itself implies that the patentee may control the market for the nonstaple good; otherwise, his ‘right’ to sell licenses for the marketing of the nonstaple good would be meaningless, since no one would be willing to pay him for a superfluous authorization.” Ibid. I fail to see, however, why a license to practice a patented process would in any sense be “superfluous,” for, as I have said, competitors selling propanil would still be required to obtain patent licenses from respondent. The fact that royalties could be collected on such licenses might have some effect on the propanil market, but it does not follow that respondent may refuse to grant any licenses, thereby excluding all competitors from the propanil market.

 The fact that respondent may not refuse to license competing sellers of propanil who do not purchase the product from it is not inconsistent with the notion that a patent holder is free to suppress his invention or to reserve it entirely to himself. Respondent may discontinue all sales *235of propanil and all licensing of its patented process and yet itself continue to use propanil in the patented process without being guilty of patent misuse. But it may not sell propanil to others, thus granting them patent licenses by operation of law, while refusing to license competing sellers of propanil, thus effectively excluding them from the market.

 S&E Contractors, Inc. v. United States, 406 U. S. 1, 13, n. 9 (1972).

 Section 271 (c)’s limitation of the contributory infringement doctrine to sales of nonstaples does not establish that the exemptions contained in § 271 (d) are relevant only to infringement actions against sellers of non-staples, for § 271 (d) is equally applicable to infringement actions brought under §271 (b).

 The fact that §271 was not intended to work a major repeal of the patent misuse doctrine is reflected in the treatment the legislation received on the floor of the House and Senate. As the Court of Appeals recognized, there was no debate on the House floor and scant comment in the Senate. Just prior to the Senate vote, Senator McCarran, chairman of the Judiciary Committee that had been responsible for the bill in the Senate, was asked by Senator Saltonstall: “Does the bill change the law in any way or only codify the present patent laws?” Senator McCarran replied: “It codifies the present patent laws.” 98 Cong. Rec. 9323 (1952). Although Senator McCarran later referred to the desire to clarify confusion that may have arisen from Mercoid, there was no indication that the legislation would work a major repeal of the patent misuse doctrine.

 The Justice Department’s opposition to congressional enactment of §271 does not indicate that the statute was intended to immunize respondent’s conduct in this case. “[W]e have often cautioned against the danger, when interpreting a statute, of reliance upon the views of its legislative opponents. In their zeal to defeat a bill, they understandably *240tend to overstate its reach.” NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U S. 58, 66 (1964).