Posts Tagged: "The Declaratory Judgment Act"

No Actual Controversy for Foreign Manufacturer for DJ, Even if Product is Manufactured in US

The dispute arose from a Mexican patent infringement suit between Stellar and two of Allied’s Mexican distributors. Allied manufactures the products accused of infringement in the United States, which are then sold in Mexico by Allied’s Mexican’s distributors. Allied sells the same product in the United States under a different name… For a patent dispute to be an actual controversy, the courts look at affirmative actions taken by the patentee, communication between the parties, the relevant litigation history, and the relationship between any foreign suits and the US parties and patents. Assertion of a foreign patent against foreign distributors does not per se create an actual controversy, for declaratory judgment, regarding infringement of a corresponding US patent by a US manufacturer.