per se rule with the same antitrust-style analysis Kimble now urges." Moreover, the Court maintained, there was not a good reason to overrule Brulotte: "Brulotte's statutory and doctrinal underpinnings have not eroded over time." The patent statute at issue in Brulotte is essentially unchanged. The precedents on which the Brulotte Court relied, like other decisions enforcing a patent's cutoff date, remain good law. And Brulotte'''s "close relation to a whole web of [other] precedents means that reversing it could threaten others." In addition, the Court rejected Kimble's arguments that the Brulotte doctrine should be overturned because the practice it outlaws is not anticompetive and it does not violate the antitrust laws. The Court found this argument beside the point: "But Brulotte is a patent rather than an antitrust case," it insisted. Under the Court's legal analysis, "[P]atent (not antitrust) policy gave rise to the Court's conclusion that post-patent royalty contracts are unenforceable—utterly 'regardless of a demonstrable effect on competition.'" Earlier in its opinion, the Court explained that it was well-settled that it was "patent law's policy [to] establish[] a 'post-expiration . . . public domain' in which every person can make free use of a formerly patented product." The majority opinion is thus a strong rebuke to those analysts that seek to make the misuse doctrine a kind of petty antitrust law, in which antitrust principles of analysis dominate over policies unique to patent law; Kimble reaffirms many prior Supreme Court decisions that hold that misuse may be found in conduct that does not violate the antitrust laws. Congressional limits to patent misuse Congress limited the patent misuse affirmative defense in both 1952 and 1998, resulting in (d) of the Patent Act. Overhaul of the Patent Act in 1952 In 1952, Congress added provisions to the Patent Act explicitly exempting from patent misuse merely charging royalties, licensing, and suing to enforce patents against contributory infringement. These provisions are in 35 U.S.C. § 271(d). Patent Misuse Reform Act of 1988 In 1988, Congress enacted legislation that narrowed the scope of the patent misuse by creating safe harbors for patent holders in (d). It clarified that patentees did not misuse their patents by suing people creating products which could be used to infringement patents (contributory infringement). Requiring people to buy another license or product to obtain a patented product is also not misuse, unless the patentee holds "market power." Remedy Most types