European courts have begun asserting jurisdiction over U.S. patents, allowing them to grant remedies that American law explicitly forbids.
March 31, 2026
Original Paper
Extraterritorial Patent Misuse
SSRN · 6451482
The Takeaway
While patent law is supposedly 'territorial' (stopping at national borders), recent rulings in the EU allow their courts to hear infringement cases regarding non-EU patents if the defendant is based in Europe. This allows patent holders to bypass U.S. statutory limits on their own U.S. patents by suing in a foreign court.
From the abstract
<p>Patent law is territorial. Each nation grants patents under its own law, and those rights stop at national borders. But technology operates globally, and recent jurisdictional developments enable patentees to exploit that gap. In 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that European Union courts can exercise jurisdiction over patent infringement claims concerning non-EU patents when defendants are domiciled in the European Union. <span>Patentees can now obtain remedies exce