The relevant question to determine ‘domestic’ is whether the use in commerce occurred within the United States

Because §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1) are not extraterritorial, we must consider when claims involve “domestic” applications of these provisions. As discussed above, the proper test requires determining the provision’s focus and then ascertaining whether Hetronic can “establish that ‘the conduct relevant to [that] focus occurred in the United States.’” Nestlé, 593 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 3–4). Much of the parties’ dispute in this case misses this critical point and centers on the “focus” of the relevant provisions without regard to the “conduct relevant to that focus.” WesternGeco, 585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 5). Abitron contends that §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1) focus on preventing infringing use of trademarks, while Hetronic argues that they focus both on protecting the goodwill of mark owners and on preventing consumer confusion. The United States as amicus curiae argues that the provisions focus on only likely consumer confusion. The parties all seek support for their positions in Steele v. Bulova Watch Co., 344 U. S. 280 (1952), but that decision is of little assistance here. There, we considered a suit alleging that the defendant, through activity in both the United States and Mexico, had violated the Lanham Act by producing and selling watches stamped with a trademark that was protected in the United States. Although we allowed the claim to proceed, our analysis understandably did not follow the two-step framework that we would develop decades later. Our decision was instead narrow and factbound. It rested on the judgment that “the facts in the record . . . when viewed as a whole” were sufficient to rebut the presumption against extraterritoriality. Id., at 285. In reaching this conclusion, we repeatedly emphasized both that the defendant committed “essential steps” in the course of his infringing conduct in the United States and that his conduct was likely to and did cause consumer confusion in the United States.4 Id., at 286–287; accord, e.g., id., at 286 (“His operations and their effects were not confined within the territorial limits of a foreign nation”); id., at 288 (“[P]etitioner by his ‘own deliberate acts, here and elsewhere, brought about forbidden results within the United States’” (alteration omitted)). Because Steele implicated both domestic conduct and a likelihood of domestic confusion, it does not tell us which one determines the domestic applications of §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1). With Steele put aside, then, we think the parties’ particular debate over the “focus” of §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1) in the abstract does not exhaust the relevant inquiry. The ultimate question regarding permissible domestic application turns on the location of the conduct relevant to the focus. See, e.g., RJR Nabisco, 579 U. S., at 337. And the conduct relevant to any focus the parties have proffered is infringing use in commerce, as the Act defines it. This conclusion follows from the text and context of §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1). Both provisions prohibit the unauthorized use “in commerce” of a protected trademark when, among other things, that use “is likely to cause confusion.” §§1114(1)(a), 1125(a)(1). In other words, Congress proscribed the use of a mark in commerce under certain conditions. This conduct, to be sure, must create a sufficient risk of confusion, but confusion is not a separate requirement; rather, it is simply a necessary characteristic of an offending use.5 Because Congress has premised liability on a specific action (a particular sort of use in commerce), that specific action would be the conduct relevant to any focus on offer today. See, e.g., WesternGeco, 585 U. S., at ___– ___ (slip op., at 6–8). In sum, as this case comes to us, “use in commerce” is the conduct relevant to any potential focus of §1114(1)(a) and §1125(a)(1) because Congress deemed a violation of either provision to occur each time a mark is used in commerce in the way Congress described, with no need for any actual confusion. Under step two of our extraterritoriality standard, then, “use in commerce” provides the dividing line between foreign and domestic applications of these Lanham Act provisions.