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Extraterritoriality In U.S. Patent Law, Timothy R. Holbrook

William & Mary Law Review

Globalization has eroded traditional territorial limits on intellectual property laws. Although this pressure was first seen in trademark and copyright law, recent court decisions have demonstrated that the territorial lines of U.S. patents are also under assault. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently considered extraterritoriality in U.S. patent law in its 2007 decision in Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., discussed thoroughly in this Article. Courts and commentators have offered two primary approaches to deal with the issue of the extraterritorial reach of U.S. patents. First, many courts, including the Supreme Court, continue to adhere to a strict view of a patent's …