On March 19, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Kirtsaeng v John Wiley & Sons Inc., which could impact general counsel at Texas businesses that buy or sell copyrighted products, such as books, computer software, music, works of art, jewelry, and other ornamental products. The high court sent a signal that, in the worldwide economy, businesses no longer can segment their product offerings based on geography as easily as they have in the past.
According to the Supreme Court’s opinion, John Wiley & Sons, an academic textbook publisher, gives rights to its foreign subsidiary to publish, print and sell foreign editions of Wiley’s English language textbooks abroad. The foreign editions of the books contained a legend stating that the books were authorized for sale in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East only and could not be exported out of those territories. It went on to say the importation of the book to another region was illegal and violated the publisher’s rights.
