The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) recently decided a very important case at the intersection of patent and antitrust laws. It presented the question of whether it was “patent misuse” to tie together, for purposes of licensing, a group of the patents owned by different companies who were competitors.
The case involved pools or packages of patents covering alternative technologies, joint ventures, industry technical standards, antitrust “quick look” and “rule of reason” analysis, competitors acting in concert and anti-competitive conduct. In Princo Corporation v. Int’l Trade Commission, the CAFC decided 8-2 that the owners of the patents could require licensees to license a pool or package of patents rather than one patent out of the pool or package, and it was not patent misuse even if the competitors had agreed to suppress one of the alternative technologies.
