Princo Corp. v. ITC

Princo Corp. v. ITC was a 2010 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, that sought to narrow the defense of patent misuse to claims for patent infringement. Princo held that a party asserting the defense of patent misuse, absent a case of so-called per se misuse, must prove both ""leveraging"" of the patent being enforced against it and a substantial anticompetitive effect outside the legitimate scope of that patent right. In so ruling, the court emphasized that the misuse alleged must involve the patent in suit, not another patent.The majority opinion substantially ""entangle[d] patent misuse jurisprudence with antitrust concepts."" The Supreme Court's subsequent opinion in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, however, points strongly in the opposite direction, rejecting the conflation of misuse and antitrust and insisting that they embody different policies.