Westerngeco LLC v. Ion Geophysical Corporation

138 S.Ct. 2129 (2018)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

WesternGeco (P) owns four patents for surveying the ocean floor. P does not sell its technology or license it to competitors. It uses the technology itself, performing surveys for oil and gas companies. The system uses lateral-steering technology to produce higher quality data than previous survey systems. ION (D) began selling a competing system. D manufactured the components in the United States and then shipped them to companies abroad. Those companies combined the components to create a surveying system indistinguishable from P’s. P proved that it had lost 10 specific survey contracts and the jury found D liable and awarded P damages of $12.5 million in royalties and $93.4 million in lost profits. D filed a post-trial motion to set aside the verdict, arguing that §271(f) does not apply extraterritorially. The District Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals reversed the award. It held that §271(a), the general infringement provision, does not allow patent owners to recover for lost foreign sales and Section 271(f) should be interpreted the same way because it was “designed” to put patent infringers “in a similar position.” The Supreme Court vacated the Federal Circuit’s judgment and remanded in light of the decision in Halo Electronics. On remand, the panel majority reinstated the portion of its decision regarding the extraterritoriality of §271(f). The Supreme Court granted certiorari again.