Out of concern for limiting the “extraterritorial” reach of America’s patent laws, courts have long held that prevailing infringement plaintiffs may only recover damages actually suffered here in the U.S. Eschewing the “but for” standard that generally governs the scope of a tort plaintiff’s available damages, courts have prohibited patent owners from recovering lost profits on foreign sales of patented products, even when the lost sales resulted from the defendants’ infringing conduct.

A Supreme Court decision from last June, however, may have fundamentally altered this paradigm. In WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., the Court ruled that “but for” damages are recoverable for a specific type of infringement that involves a defendant’s exportation of the components of a patented technology for assembly abroad. Stressing that the “overriding purpose” of patent damages “is to afford patent owners complete compensation,” the court reasoned that since the defendant had committed a domestic act of infringement, the patent owner may seek whatever damages are necessary to make it whole, specifically including foreign lost profits. And while the court limited its holding to the specific section of the Patent Act at issue in the case—35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(2)—the court’s underlying rationale arguably supports making foreign lost profits recoverable for other types of infringement as well.