Mary Helen Sears In two relatively recent decisions, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has clarified and reaffirmed the well-established US legal doctrine of "first sale" and its corollaries regarding permissible repair and impermissible (and therefore infringing) reconstruction of patented articles and patented processes associated with them. Jazz Photo Corp v International Trade Commission, 59 USPQ 2d 1907 (Fed Cir August 21 2001) and Surfco Hawaii v Fin Control Systems Pty Ltd, 60 USPQ 2d 1056 (Fed Cir September 5 2001) both rest upon a fundamental of US personal property (or "chattel") law, whereby the purchaser within the United States of an article covered by a United States patent, or one that embodies a process covered by such a patent, has the same individual private property right to use and dispose of it as he or she enjoys with respect to a purchased article not covered by a viable US patent. These rights have been recognized by American courts since at least as early as the Supreme Court decision in Wilson v Simpson, 50 US (9 How) 109 (1850) and have been reiterated many times during the ensuing century and a half.
