Dawson Chemical Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co.

Dawson Chemical Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co., 448 U.S. 176 (1980), is a 1980 5–4 decision of the United States Supreme Court limiting the patent misuse doctrine and explaining the scope of the 1952 amendment of the patent laws that resurrected the contributory infringement doctrine in the wake of the Mercoid cases. The Mercoid cases and a few predecessor cases had denied relief against patent infringement to patentees who were deriving revenue from the sale of unpatented products used as supplies for patented combinations or as components of patented combinations, even when the unpatented products were specially adapted for use with the patented combinations and even when they lacked any utility other than that use. The patentees used contributory infringement suits or threats of such suits to enforce their business model, which the Mercoid cases outlawed.

In the Mercoid cases the Court had stated: "The result of this decision, together with those which have preceded it, is to limit substantially the doctrine of contributory infringement. What residuum may be left we need not stop to consider." This caused "some consternation among patent lawyers," and some "segments of the patent bar eventually decided to ask Congress for corrective legislation that would restore some scope to the contributory infringement doctrine. With great perseverance, they advanced their proposal in three successive Congresses before it eventually was enacted in 1952." Dawson interpreted the 1952 amendments to re-establish contributory infringement as a possible claim for relief and held that supplying an unpatented product especially adapted for use in practicing a patented process and without any substantial non-infringing use was unlawful contributory infringement.