Guest Post: Deconstructing the Question Presented in WesternGeco

Guest post by Prof. Timothy Holbrook of Emory Law.  Professor Holbrook has written extensively on extraterritoriality and patents.  In the interest of full disclosure, he anticipates that this post will likely form the basis of an amicus brief. Patent law remains hot at the Supreme Court.  The Court on January 14, 2018, agreed to review WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp.  WesternGeco joins two other patent cases at the Supreme Court (so far) for its October 2017 term. WesternGeco is interesting because it is the third time in the since the October 2006 term that the Court has reviewed a fairly esoteric patent law provision, 35 U.S.C. § 271(f).  The Court addressed this provision in Microsoft Corp. v. AT & T Corp. and, just last term, in Life Technologies Corporation v. Promega Corporation. Section 271(f) creates a form of patent infringement that is extraterritorial in nature.  This provision makes a party liable for patent…

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