Federal Circuit Saves Complementary Products From Exhaustion

In Helferich Patent Licensing v New York Times the Federal Circuit reversed the holding of the Northern District of Illinois on a summary judgment that earlier licences to handset makers exhausted the patent owner's rights on different patents directed to providing content. Helferich owned patents, deriving from a common specification, covering wireless communication technologies. Some patents covered handsets, while others covered the provision of content information to handsets. The court deemed these inventions to involve complementary activities or goods, where the use of one tended to make the other more useful.

Helferich licensed its portfolio to handset manufacturers. This exhausted its claims against possessors of handsets from licensed manufacturers ('authorised acquirers'). Importantly, Helferich's handset licences distinguished handset manufacturers from content providers. Helferich reserved its right to pursue infringement claims against the content