Quanta Brief: Tennant

Brief of Amicus Curiae Motorola, Inc. in Support of Petitioners

2007 WL 3440936

• Motorola supports the petitioners (Quanta).
• Court precedent establishes that the licensed sale of microprocessors and chipsets exhausted LGE's patent rights.
• There are other agreements similar to, yet distinct from, licensing. The Court's ruling here should only apply to license agreements, not other agreements such as covenant not to sue.
• US v. Univis sets the right precedent.
• Court ruling in Mitchell v. Hawley was based on a lack of authority to sell patented machines, not language limiting their use.
• Similarly, in Adams v. Burke, "when [machines] are once lawfully made and sold, there is no restriction on their use to be implied for the benefit of the patentee or his assignees or licensees."
• Patent law achieves its purpose when the patentee receives his reward for the use of his invention through commercial sale. Once this purpose is achieved, patent law does not provide any further restriction on its use.
• LGE's attempts to gain damages from Quanta is an unlawful attempt to gain a second reward from the patent law practice.
• The Court shouldn't decide what patent exhaustion effect the release has on products Intel sold before the release was formalized.
• There isn't enough information available about the pre-license sales to make a decision about how LGE's release affects those sales.