Patents without Borders: Extraterritoriality in U.S. Patent Law

Date: January 12, 2017 (Thursday)

Time: 1pm – 2pm

Venue: Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, HKU

Speaker: Professor Sapna Kumar, George Butler Research Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center (UHLC)

Abstract: Under the presumption against extraterritoriality, a court will assume that legislation applies only inside the United States, unless Congress expresses clear intent to the contrary. But what happens when a patent is violated inside the United States, but the damages are extraterritorial? In her presentation, Professor Kumar will discuss the territorial limits of U.S. patent law. She will argue that presumption was established to prevent U.S. law from applying to acts that commence and occur wholly outside the United States and was not intended to cover situations where harm flows from an act of domestic patent infringement. Professor Kumar proposes that courts employ a more flexible balancing test that can account for the interests of other countries.

About the speaker: Professor Sapna Kumar is a George Butler Research Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center and is co-director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law. She is the author of several important law review articles, including Regulating Digital Trade (Florida Law Review) and Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Genetic Information (Alabama Law Review). Professor Kumar is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and is a registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Powerpoint slides

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