Petition of the day

Issue:(1) Whether a conditional sale that transfers title to the patented item while specifying post-sale restrictions on the article’s use or resale avoids application of the patent exhaustion doctrine and therefore permits the enforcement of such post-sale restrictions through the patent laws infringement remedy; and (2) whether, in light of this Courts holding inKirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.that the common law doctrine barring restraints on alienation that is the basis of exhaustion doctrine makes no geographical distinctions, a sale of a patented article authorized by the U.S. patentee that takes place outside of the United States exhausts the U.S. patent rights in that article.