United States patent law is governed by a system of federal statutes designed to protect patent holders’ exclusive right to their invention. The infringement policies are summarized in 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), which provides: “whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefore, infringes the patent.” One of the keys elements of American patent infringement law is that extraterritorial activities are generally irrelevant to infringement cases because the right conferred by a patent under U.S. law is confined to the U.S. and its territories. However, if an infringement claim occurs within the United States, supplemental jurisdiction can be asserted, but courts have been reluctant to use their discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction.

If jurisdiction is established, courts must determine if there is any real infringement, which encompasses exportation, importation, uses, and offers to sell within, or partially within, the United States. Under 35 U.S.C. 271(a), the court must determine what a “use” of a patented product is, and the Supreme Court gave the word “use” a very broad meaning, even embracing the ability to put into use as a use. However, under §271(a), the exportation of a patented invention, even if motivated by commercial interests, cannot be an infringing “use” under §271(a). In order to protect against this loophole, §271(f)(1) and f(2) provide that “whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States . . . shall be liable as an infringer.”

Exportation is not the only question concerning the use of patented inventions; questions also arise when the patented invention is a system, combination, process, method, or involves components in different countries. If the patent covers a combination of components, the invention cannot be infringed unless an assembly of the whole is used or exported. However, infringement is not barred if a component of the patented system is located outside the US, the product is used where the system as a whole is put into service, the place of control of the system is exercised, and the beneficial use obtained. If the patent in question covers a process, the concept of “use” is fundamentally different from the use of a patented system or device; it must be carried out or preformed in order to be “used”. This however, does not preclude the patent holder from taking actions if the goods produced by this process are sold in the United States, but merely from taking action against a protected process performed partly in another country.