By Mark Kachner and Karen Vogel Weil ( July 2, 2018, 1:04 PM EDT) -- The U.S. Supreme Court — in WesternGeco LLC v. Ion Geophysical Corp. — held that a patentee may recover foreign lost profit damages for patent infringements under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(2). Section 271(f), enacted in 1984, created patent liability for exporting from the United States components especially made for use in an infringing device. This statute closed a loophole that had allowed manufacturers of infringing products to escape liability by manufacturing unassembled components in the United States and shipping them abroad for foreign assembly. Here, the Supreme Court held that foreign lost profits recovered for infringements under § 271(f)(2) do not violate the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. laws. While resolving the issue of the availability of foreign lost profits in the context of § 271(f)(2), the court's decision leaves many issues unresolved....
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