Limitations of The Exhaustion Doctrine
The exhaustion doctrine is triggered only by a sale authorized by the patent holder. Thus, there are circumstances where it is difficult to determine whether the exhaustion doctrine is triggered, in light of the restrictions that the patentee has placed on the sale or use of the patented invention. Two general questions arise in these situations: (1) Was the sale authorized by the patentee? This can often be a complex factual question. (2) Even if not authorized by the patentee, are those restrictions valid and recognizable under the law?
Generally, these cases involve one or more of the following scenarios: the patent owner: (1) sells one or more components of a multi-component patented good; (2) licenses another to sell with certain restrictions on the sale itself; or (3) sells the article with restrictions directly on the purchasers or end-users (post-sale restraint).
Read more about this topic: Exhaustion Doctrine
Famous quotes containing the words limitations of, limitations, exhaustion and/or doctrine:
“The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Much of what contrives to create critical moments in parenting stems from a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the child is capable of at any given age. If a parent misjudges a child’s limitations as well as his own abilities, the potential exists for unreasonable expectations, frustration, disappointment and an unrealistic belief that what the child really needs is to be punished.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.... There are some things in every country that you must be born to endure; and another hundred years of general satisfaction with Americans and America could not reconcile this expatriate to cranberry sauce, peanut butter, and drum majorettes.”
—Alistair Cooke (b. 1908)