Sarah Stirland

By Sarah Lai Stirland for Intellectual Property Watch
The United States Supreme Court in late April reined in another patent appeals court ruling it deemed overly-expansive. The high court ruled that software companies liable for infringing a patent in the United States cannot at the same time be held liable by American courts for the same activities outside of US borders.

"Foreign law alone, not United States law, currently governs the manufacture and sale of components of patented inventions in foreign countries," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on behalf of three of her colleagues, Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and David Souter.

By Sarah Lai Stirland for Intellectual Property Watch
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a preliminary memorandum that instructed its examiners to interpret a landmark Supreme Court ruling conservatively - even as the wider community in the field of US patent law expect the opinion to shake up longstanding rules that determine when an idea is too obvious to be granted a patent. The office also formed an experts' group on the issue.