Protection of domestic IPR includes extraterritorial violations
Phillips 24 [Gregory Alan Phillips, American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and former Wyoming Attorney General, April 23, 2024, “HETRONIC INTERNATIONAL, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HETRONIC GERMANY GMBH; HYDRONIC-STEUERSYSTEME GMBH; ABI HOLDING GMBH; ABITRON GERMANY GMBH; ABITRON AUSTRIA GMBH; ALBERT FUCHS, Defendants-Appellants.” Nos. 20-6057, 20-6100, United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, //zrubin]
The Supreme Court granted Abitron's petition. Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int'l, Inc., 143 S. Ct. 398 (2022) (mem.). Considering the extraterritoriality of the Lanham Act for the first time since the 1950s,[1] the Court assessed whether the Lanham Act's trademark-infringement provisions apply to Abitron's foreign infringing conduct. Abitron, 600 U.S. at 415. The Court held that the provisions are not extraterritorial, but that they remain in force when a foreign entity uses an infringing mark in domestic commerce.