Origins of Patent Exhaustion in Jacksonian Politics, Patent Farming, and the Basis of the Bargain

Guest Post by Sean M. O’Connor, Boeing International Professor, University of Washington School of Law As most readers of this blog know, patent exhaustion is usually traced to Chief Justice Taney’s statement in the 1853 case of Bloomer v. McQuewan: “when the machine passes to the hands of the purchaser, it is no longer within the […]