Patents." Lasercomb In Lasercomb America, Inc. v. Reynolds, a copyright misuse case, the Fourth Circuit found misuse where the plaintiff copyright owner licensed its computer-assisted die-making software with agreements that forbade the licensee from permitting its personnel "to write, develop, produce or sell [competing] computer assisted die making software." Princo However, in Princo Corp. v. ITC,</ref> the Federal Circuit ruled that an alleged conspiracy to suppress competing technology of another patent was not patent misuse: [T]he alleged act of patent misuse . . . was the claimed horizontal agreement between Philips and Sony to restrict the availability of the Lagadec patent—an entirely different patent that was never asserted in the infringement action against Princo. Even if such an agreement were shown to exist, and even if it were shown to have anticompetitive effects, a horizontal agreement restricting the availability of Sony's Lagadec patent would not constitute misuse of Philips's Raaymakers patents or any of Philips's other patents in suit. Judge Bryson explained that "the question in this case comes down to this: When a patentee offers to license a patent, does the patentee misuse that patent by inducing a third party not to license its separate, competitive technology?" No precedent so holds, he insisted, and it did not fit within the requirement for misuse that the Philips-Sony agreement "have the effect of increasing the physical or temporal scope of the patent in suit." The 2015 decision of the Supreme Court in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, however, may call the soundness of Princo into question. The Kimble Court firmly rejected efforts to assimilate the patent misuse doctrine to antitrust law and explained in some detail the different policies at work in the two bodies of law. The Court insisted that patent policy rather than antitrust policy must govern patent misuse cases. One statement of patent policy is found in the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to establish patent laws to promote the progress of the useful arts. Arguably, a conspiracy to suppress a competitive technology is inconsistent with the policy to promote technological progress, as the Lockwasher case suggests. See also Herbert Hovenkamp, Restraints on Innovation, 29 247 (2007) References External links United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cases United States misuse law United States patent case law 1943 in United States case law