Article by Stephen K. Shahida and Ted Jou*
For Microsoft and the global software industry, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has resolved a longstanding open question in the patent laws. After deciding in March of this year the term "component" in 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) includes software (Eolas Technologies, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.), the Court has now decided the term "supplied" in the same statute includes copies of the software made overseas from a single master disk shipped from the United States. AT&T Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., Case No. 04-1285, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 14082 (Fed. Cir. July 13, 2005) (Lourie, J.).
The question before the Court was simple: If software designed, developed, tested, marketed and supported in the United States infringes a U.S. patent when in operation, can the software company escape liability by transferring the last step, installing the software onto a computer, overseas? The AT&T Court answered the question with an unequivocal no.
