Today the Supreme Court in Life Technologies v. Promega ruled that 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(1) liability for supplying from the U.S. “all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention” is a quantitative, not qualitative, analysis of the number of  components supplied such that supplying only a single component of a multicomponent invention does not give rise to liability under that section (though it might give rise to liability under § 271(f)(2) if that single component “is especially made or especially adapted for use in the invention and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use”). (see also our June 27, 2016 post on the Supreme Court’s grant of review of this case).  As Justice Alito’s concurrence states, the opinion “establishes that more than one component is necessary, but does not address how much more.”   So the art of litigating Section 271(f)(1)  will focus on the litigants’ ability to delineate how many separate “components” are in a claimed invention and whether the resulting number of such components supplied from the U.S. is “substantial.”
Continue Reading Supreme Court rules that number of components supplied from U.S., not their importance to invention, is relevant to Section 271(f)(1) infringement (Life Tech. v. Promega)