[brudgers]

>"Lodsys’s threatened claims are barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale. As the Supreme Court has made clear, “[t]he authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder’s rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking patent law to control postsale use of the article."

I find it interesting to see Apple invoke the First Sale Doctrine given the restrictions which it places upon its hardware (e.g. iPhone).

[bradleyland]

First sale applies to copyright, not patent licensing. With copyrighted material, you can "transfer" it to a third-party. A patent license typically spells out explicitly whether the patented material may be used for "distribution" to third-parties.

This matter will come down to whether or not Apple's existing license extends to third-party developers, based on the language in the patent license agreements.

[gte910h]

First sale actually applies to both:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine

[brudgers]

Apple's letter [as presented] explicitly argues first sale doctrine.

[bradleyland]

I missed that in my first read, but I [mistakenly] thought that first sale only applied to consumers, not business licensing agreements.