Microsoft Corporation v. AT&T Corp. (550 U.S. 437)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 30, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 550 U.S. 437 · 127 S. Ct. 1746
- Decided
- April 30, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 7–1
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to footnote 14. It is the general rule under United States patent law that no infringement occurs when a patented product is made and sold in another country. There is an exception. Section 271(f) of the Patent Act, adopted in 1984, provides that infringement does occur when one “supplies . . . from the United States,” for “combination” abroad, a patented invention’s “components.” 35 U. S. C. § 271(f)(1). This case concerns the applicability of § 271(f) to computer software first sent from the United States to a foreign manufacturer on a master disk, or by electronic transmission, then copied by the foreign recipient for installation on computers made and sold abroad. AT&T holds a patent on an apparatus for digitally encoding and compressing recorded speech. Microsoft’s Windows operating system, it is conceded, has the potential to infringe AT&T’s patent, because Windows incorporates software code that, when installed, enables a computer to process speech in the manner claimed by that patent. It bears emphasis, however, that uninstalled Windows software does not infringe AT&T’s patent any more than a computer standing alone does; instead, the patent is infringed only when a computer is loaded with Windows and is thereby rendered capable of performing as the patented speech processor. The question before us: Does…
Excerpt of a 36,550-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.