Territoriality and Tangibility After Transocean

Patent law is generally considered the most territorial form of intellectual property. The extension of infringement to include "offers to sell" inventions opened the door to potential extraterritorial expansion of U.S. patent law. In Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc. v. Maersk Contractors USA, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit walked through the door by concluding (1) that the location of the ultimate sale, not the location of the offer, determines whether patent infringement occurred and (2) that there can be infringement by selling or offering to sell an invention based solely on diagrams and schematics.