Court Opinion

ID: 9427467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:54.955015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.431348
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the result.
For me, the hard question is whether this case can meaningfully be distinguished from Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964). There the Court held that a patent licensor could not use the leverage of its patent to obtain a royalty contract *267that extended beyond the patent’s 17-year term. Here Mrs. Aronson has used the leverage of her patent application to negotiate a royalty contract which continues to be binding even though the patent application was long ago denied.
The Court, ante, at 265, asserts that her leverage played “no part” with respect to the contingent agreement to pay a reduced royalty if no patent issued within five years. Yet it may well be that Quick Point agreed to that contingency in order to obtain its other rights that depended on the success of the patent application. The parties did not apportion consideration in the neat fashion the Court adopts.
In my view, the holding in Brulotte reflects hostility toward extension of a patent monopoly whose term is fixed by statute, 35 U. S. C. § 154. Such hostility has no place here. A patent application which is later denied temporarily discourages unlicensed imitators. Its benefits and hazards are of a different magnitude from those of a granted patent that prohibits all competition for 17 years. Nothing justifies estopping a patent-application licensor from entering into a contract whose term does not end if the application fails. The Court points out, ante, at 263, that enforcement of this contract does not conflict with the objectives of the patent laws. The United States, as amicus curiae, maintains that patent-application licensing of this sort is desirable because it encourages patent applications, promotes early disclosure, and allows parties to structure their bargains efficiently.
On this basis, I concur in the Court’s holding that federal patent law does not pre-empt the enforcement of Mrs. Aronson’s contract with Quick Point.