U.S. Supreme Court, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, Docket No. 22-451

 

Chevron Deference

 

Statute Interpretation

 

Silent or Ambiguous Statute

 

Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §551 et seq.

 

Article III of the Constitution

 

Stare Decisis

 

 

 

 

The Court granted certiorari in these cases limited to the question whether Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, should be overruled or clarified. Under the Chevron doctrine, courts have sometimes been required to defer to “permissible” agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies administer—even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently. Id., at 843. In each case below, the reviewing courts applied Chevron’s framework to resolve in favor of the Government challenges by petitioners to a rule promulgated by the National Marine Fisheries Service pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, 16 U. S. C. §1801 et seq., which incorporates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §551 et seq.

 

 

Held: The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled.

 

 

Article III of the Constitution assigns to the Federal Judiciary the responsibility and power to adjudicate “Cases” and “Controversies”—concrete disputes with consequences for the parties involved.

The Framers appreciated that the laws judges would necessarily apply in resolving those disputes would not always be clear, but envisioned that the final “interpretation of the laws” would be “the proper and peculiar province of the courts.” The Federalist No. 78, p. 525 (A. Hamilton). As Chief Justice Marshall declared in the foundational decision of Marbury v. Madison, “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” 1 Cranch 137, 177. In the decades following Marbury, when the meaning of a statute was at issue, the judicial role was to “interpret the act of Congress, in order to ascertain the rights of the parties.” Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, 515.

 

 

Congress in 1946 enacted the APA “as a check upon administrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried them to excesses not contemplated in legislation creating their offices.” Morton Salt, 338 U. S., at 644. The APA prescribes procedures for agency action and delineates the basic contours of judicial review of such action. And it codifies for agency cases the unremarkable, yet elemental proposition reflected by judicial practice dating back to Marbury: that courts decide legal questions by applying their own judgment. As relevant here, the APA specifies that courts, not agencies, will decide “all relevant questions of law” arising on review of agency action, 5 U. S. C. §706—even those involving ambiguous laws. It prescribes no deferential standard for courts to employ in answering those legal questions, despite mandating deferential judicial review of agency policymaking and factfinding. See §§706(2)(A), (E). And by directing courts to “interpret constitutional and statutory provisions” without differentiating between the two, §706, it makes clear that agency interpretations of statutes—like agency interpretations of the Constitution—are not entitled to deference. The APA’s history and the contemporaneous views of various respected commentators underscore the plain meaning of its text.

 

 

Courts exercising independent judgment in determining the meaning of statutory provisions, consistent with the APA, may—as they have from the start—seek aid from the interpretations of those responsible for implementing particular statutes. See Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 140. And when the best reading of a statute is that it delegates discretionary authority to an agency, the role of the reviewing court under the APA is, as always, to independently interpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress subject to constitutional limits. The court fulfills that role by recognizing constitutional delegations, fixing the boundaries of the delegated authority, and ensuring the agency has engaged in “ ‘reasoned decisionmaking’ ” within those boundaries. Michigan v. EPA, 576 U. S. 743, 750 (quoting Allentown Mack Sales & Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U. S. 359, 374). By doing so, a court upholds the traditional conception of the judicial function that the APA adopts.

 

 

The deference that Chevron requires of courts reviewing agency action cannot be squared with the APA.

 

 

(1) Chevron, decided in 1984 by a bare quorum of six Justices, triggered a marked departure from the traditional judicial approach of independently examining each statute to determine its meaning. The question in the case was whether an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation was consistent with the term “stationary source” as used in the Clean Air Act. 467 U. S., at 840. To answer that question, the Court articulated and employed a now familiar two-step approach broadly applicable to review of agency action. The first step was to discern “whether Congress had directly spoken to the precise question at issue.” Id., at 842. The Court explained that “if the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter,” ibid., and courts were therefore to “reject administrative constructions which are contrary to clear congressional intent,” id., at 843, n. 9. But in a case in which “the statute [was] silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue” at hand, a reviewing court could not “simply impose its own construction on the statute, as would be necessary in the absence of an administrative interpretation.” Id., at 843 (footnote omitted). Instead, at Chevron’s second step, a court had to defer to the agency if it had offered “a permissible construction of the statute,” ibid., even if not “the reading the court would have reached if the question initially had arisen in a judicial proceeding,” ibid., n. 11. Employing this new test, the Court

concluded that Congress had not addressed the question at issue with the necessary “level of specificity” and that EPA’s interpretation was “entitled to deference.”

 

 

(…) It therefore makes no sense to speak of a “permissible” interpretation that is not the one the court, after applying all relevant interpretive tools, concludes is best.

 

 

(…) Congress expects courts to handle technical statutory questions, and courts did so without issue in agency cases before Chevron. After all, in an agency case in particular, the reviewing court will go about its task with the agency’s “body of experience and informed judgment,” among other information, at its disposal. Skidmore, 323 U. S., at 140. An agency’s interpretation of a statute “cannot bind a court,” but may be especially informative “to the extent it rests on factual premises within the agency’s expertise.” Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms v. FLRA, 464 U. S. 89, 98, n. 8. Delegating ultimate interpretive authority to agencies is simply not necessary to ensure that the resolution of statutory ambiguities is well informed by subject matter expertise.

 

 

By overruling Chevron, though, the Court does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework. The holdings of those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—including the Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are still subject to statutory stare decisis despite the Court’s change in interpretive methodology. See CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, 553 U. S. 442, 457. Mere reliance on Chevron cannot constitute a “ ‘special justification’ ” for overruling such a holding. Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U. S. 258, 266 (quoting Dickerson v. United States, 530 U. S. 428, 443).

 

 

 

 

(U.S. Supreme Court, June 28, 2024, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, Docket No. 22-451)

South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., Docket No. 17-494

Sales of goods: Tax: Sales tax: Use tax: Commerce clause: Interstate commerce: E-commerce: Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement: Stare decisis: Fortas, J.: Gorsuch, J.:

When a consumer purchases goods or services, the consumer’s State often imposes a sales tax. This case requires the Court to determine when an out-of-state seller can be required to collect and remit that tax. All concede that taxing the sales in question here is lawful. The question is whether the out-of-state seller can be held responsible for its payment, and this turns on a proper interpretation of the Commerce Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3.

In two earlier cases the Court held that an out-of-state seller’s liability to collect and remit the tax to the consumer’s State depended on whether the seller had a physical presence in that State, but that mere shipment of goods into the consumer’s State, following an order from a catalog, did not satisfy the physical presence requirement. National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U. S. 753 (1967); Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U. S. 298 (1992). The Court granted certiorari here to reconsider the scope and validity of the physical presence rule mandated by those cases.

Under this Court’s decisions in Bellas Hess and Quill, South Dakota may not require a business to collect its sales tax if the business lacks a physical presence in the State. Without that physical presence, South Dakota instead must rely on its residents to pay the use tax owed on their purchases from out-of-state sellers. “The impracticability of this collection from the multitude of individual purchasers is obvious.” National Geographic Soc. v. California Bd. of Equalization, 430 U. S. 551, 555 (1977). And consumer compliance rates are notoriously low.

(…) This Court’s doctrine has developed further with time. Modern precedents rest upon two primary principles that mark the boundaries of a State’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. First, state regulations may not discriminate against interstate commerce; and second, States may not impose undue burdens on interstate commerce. State laws that discriminate against interstate commerce face “a virtually per se rule of invalidity.” Granholm v. Heald, 544 U. S. 460, 476 (2005). State laws that “regulate even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest . . . will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970). Although subject to exceptions and variations, see, e.g., Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794 (1976); Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573 (1986), these two principles guide the courts in adjudicating cases challenging state laws under the Commerce Clause.

These principles also animate the Court’s Commerce Clause precedents addressing the validity of state taxes. The Court explained the now-accepted framework for state taxation in Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274 (1977). The Court held that a State “may tax exclusively interstate commerce so long as the tax does not create any effect forbidden by the Commerce Clause.” Id., at 285. After all, “interstate commerce may be required to pay its fair share of state taxes.” D. H. Holmes Co. v. McNamara, 486 U. S. 24, 31 (1988). The Court will sustain a tax so long as it (1) applies to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State, (2) is fairly apportioned, (3) does not discriminate against interstate commerce, and (4) is fairly related to the services the State provides. See Complete Auto, supra, at 279.

Before Complete Auto, the Court had addressed a challenge to an Illinois tax that required out-of-state retailers to collect and remit taxes on sales made to consumers who purchased goods for use within Illinois. Bellas Hess, 386 U. S., at 754–755. The Court held that a mail-order company “whose only connection with customers in the State is by common carrier or the United States mail” lacked the requisite minimum contacts with the State required by both the Due Process Clause and the Commerce Clause. Id., at 758. Unless the retailer maintained a physical presence such as “retail outlets, solicitors, or property within a State,” the State lacked the power to require that retailer to collect a local use tax. Ibid. The dissent disagreed: “There should be no doubt that this large-scale, systematic, continuous solicitation and exploitation of the Illinois consumer market is a sufficient ‘nexus’ to require Bellas Hess to collect from Illinois customers and to remit the use tax.” Id., at 761–762 (opinion of Fortas, J., joined by Black and Douglas, JJ.).

In 1992, the Court reexamined the physical presence rule in Quill. That case presented a challenge to North Dakota’s “attempt to require an out-of-state mail-order house that has neither outlets nor sales representatives in the State to collect and pay a use tax on goods purchased for use within the State.” 504 U. S., at 301. Despite the fact that Bellas Hess linked due process and the Commerce Clause together, the Court in Quill overruled the due process holding, but not the Commerce Clause holding; and it thus reaffirmed the physical presence rule. 504 U. S., at 307–308, 317–318.

The physical presence rule has “been the target of criticism over many years from many quarters.” Direct Mar­keting Assn. v. Brohl, 814 F. 3d 1129, 1148, 1150–1151 (CA10 2016) (Gorsuch, J., concurring). Quill, it has been said, was “premised on assumptions that are unfounded” and “riddled with internal inconsistencies.” Rothfeld, Quill: Confusing the Commerce Clause, 56 Tax Notes 487, 488 (1992). Quill created an inefficient “online sales tax loophole” that gives out-of-state businesses an advantage. A. Laffer & D. Arduin, Pro-Growth Tax Reform and E-Fairness 1, 4 (July 2013). And “while nexus rules are clearly necessary,” the Court “should focus on rules that are appropriate to the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth.” Hellerstein, Deconstructing the Debate Over State Taxation of Electronic Commerce, 13 Harv. J. L. & Tech. 549, 553 (2000). Each year, the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States. These critiques underscore that the physical presence rule, both as first formulated and as applied today, is an incorrect interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

Quill is flawed on its own terms. First, the physical presence rule is not a necessary interpretation of the requirement that a state tax must be “applied to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State.” Com­plete Auto, 430 U. S., at 279. Second, Quill creates rather than resolves market distortions. And third, Quill imposes the sort of arbitrary, formalistic distinction that the Court’s modern Commerce Clause precedents disavow.

(…) For example, a company with a website accessible in South Dakota may be said to have a physical presence in the State via the customers’ computers. A website may leave cookies saved to the customers’ hard drives, or customers may download the company’s app onto their phones. Or a company may lease data storage that is permanently, or even occasionally, located in South Dakota. Cf. United States v. Microsoft Corp., 584 U. S. ___ (2018) (per curiam).

(…) The physical presence rule as defined and enforced in Bellas Hess and Quill is not just a technical legal problem—it is an extraordinary imposition by the Judiciary on States’ authority to collect taxes and perform critical public functions. Forty-one States, two Territories, and the District of Columbia now ask this Court to reject the test formulated in Quill.

(…) Yet the physical presence rule undermines that necessary confidence by giving some online retailers an arbitrary advantage over their competitors who collect state sales taxes.

(…) “Although we approach the reconsideration of our decisions with the utmost caution, stare decisis is not an inexorable command.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 233 (2009) (quoting State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 20 (1997)). Here, stare decisis can no longer support the Court’s prohibition of a valid exercise of the States’ sovereign power.

(…) Further, the real world implementation of Commerce Clause doctrines now makes it manifest that the physical presence rule as defined by Quill must give way to the “far-reaching systemic and structural changes in the economy” and “many other societal dimensions” caused by the Cyber Age. Direct Marketing, 575 U. S., at ___ (KENNEDY, J., concurring) (slip op., at 3). Though Quill was wrong on its own terms when it was decided in 1992, since then the Internet revolution has made its earlier error all the more egregious and harmful.

(…) For these reasons, the Court concludes that the physical presence rule of Quill is unsound and incorrect. The Court’s decisions in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U. S. 298 (1992), and National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U. S. 753 (1967), should be, and now are, overruled.

In the absence of Quill and Bellas Hess, the first prong of the Complete Auto test simply asks whether the tax applies to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State. 430 U. S., at 279. “Such a nexus is established when the taxpayer [or collector] ‘avails itself of the substantial privilege of carrying on business’ in that jurisdiction.” Polar Tankers, Inc. v. City of Valdez, 557 U. S. 1, 11 (2009). Here, the nexus is clearly sufficient based on both the economic and virtual contacts respondents have with the State. The Act applies only to sellers that deliver more than $100,000 of goods or services into South Dakota or engage in 200 or more separate transactions for the delivery of goods and services into the State on an annual basis. S. B. 106, §1. This quantity of business could not have occurred unless the seller availed itself of the substantial privilege of carrying on business in South Dakota. And respondents are large, national companies that undoubtedly maintain an extensive virtual presence. Thus, the substantial nexus requirement of Complete Auto is satisfied in this case.

The question remains whether some other principle in the Court’s Commerce Clause doctrine might invalidate the Act. Because the Quill physical presence rule was an obvious barrier to the Act’s validity, these issues have not yet been litigated or briefed, and so the Court need not resolve them here. That said, South Dakota’s tax system includes several features that appear designed to prevent discrimination against or undue burdens upon interstate commerce. First, the Act applies a safe harbor to those who transact only limited business in South Dakota. Second, the Act ensures that no obligation to remit the sales tax may be applied retroactively. S. B. 106, §5. Third, South Dakota is one of more than 20 States that have adopted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. This system standardizes taxes to reduce administrative and compliance costs: It requires a single, state level tax administration, uniform definitions of products and services, simplified tax rate structures, and other uniform rules. It also provides sellers access to sales tax administration software paid for by the State. Sellers who choose to use such software are immune from audit liability. Any remaining claims regarding the application of the Commerce Clause in the absence of Quill and Bellas Hess may be addressed in the first instance on remand.

(U.S.S.C., June 21, 2018, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., Docket No. 17-494, J. Kennedy)

A la lumière de la « Commerce Clause », U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, un état, domicile de l’acheteur, peut-il exiger d’un vendeur sis en un autre état de percevoir et de régler la taxe de vente ?

Dans deux décisions précédentes (Bellas Hess et Quill), la Cour a répondu par l’affirmative, mais à la condition que le vendeur dispose d’une présence physique dans l’état de l’acheteur. La simple expédition des biens, après un achat sur catalogue, ne satisfaisait pas à la condition de la présence physique.

Sans présence physique du vendeur sur son sol, l’état de l’acheteur devait récupérer la « sales tax » auprès de chaque acheteur individuel, un système qualifié d’impraticable.

Dans sa décision « Complete Auto » rendue en 1977, la Cour a jugé qu’un état était compétent pour taxer le commerce entre états (et lui seul), à condition de ne pas créer d’effets interdits par la « Commerce Clause ». De la sorte, une telle taxe doit s’appliquer à une activité en lien substantiel avec l’état de perception, doit être répartie équitablement entre les débiteurs, ne doit pas discriminer le commerce entre états à l’avantage du commerce local, et doit être équitablement liée aux services apportés par l’état de perception.

La jurisprudence Bellas Hess et Quill a fait l’objet de nombreuses critiques, auxquelles se sont joints les Juges Fortas et Gorsuch dans diverses opinions. Elle a été vue comme créant un avantage concurrentiel en faveur du commerce électronique provenant d’un autre état que celui de l’acheteur. Ces critiques soutiennent que la règle de la présence physique résulte d’une interprétation incorrecte de la Commerce Clause.

Par exemple, une entreprise qui maintient un site Internet peut être qualifiée d’entreprise avec présence physique dans un autre état que celui de son siège, par le biais des ordinateurs des clients.

En conséquence, Bellas Hess et Quill sont ici reconsidérés, et « overruled », ce que n’empêche pas le principe « stare decisis ». Reste donc essentiellement applicable le premier élément du test posé par la décision Complete Auto, à savoir la condition que la taxe soit imposée à une activité présentant un lien substantiel avec l’état qui taxe. Un tel lien est établi quand le débiteur de la taxe profite des conditions que l’état met à sa disposition pour permettre son activité commerciale. En l’espèce, ce lien est clairement suffisant considérant les contacts économiques et virtuels avec l’état de l’acheteur : la loi qui prévoit la taxe ne s’applique qu’aux vendeurs qui délivrent plus de 100'000 dollars dans l’état de l’acheteur, ou qui participent à plus de 200 transactions individuelles par année dans dit état.

(L’espèce mentionne encore le « Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement », adopté par plus de 20 états. Ce système standardise les taxes pour réduire les coûts administratifs. Il ne requiert au niveau de l’état qu’une seule administration fiscale, prévoit des définitions uniformes de produits et services, et prévoit d’autres règles de simplification).

L’affaire est renvoyée à l’autorité inférieure pour déterminer si d’autres principes découlant de la Commerce Clause sont susceptibles d’annuler la loi qui prévoit la taxe litigieuse.

Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Bd., docket 16-399, J. Gorsuch, dissenting

Stare decisis:

(…) This Court has long made clear that where, as here, we have not “squarely addressed an issue, and have at most assumed one side of it to be cor­rect, we are free to address the issue on the merits.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 631 (1993); see also Legal Services Corporation v. Valazquez, 531 U. S. 533, 537 (2001) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“Judicial decisions do not stand as binding ‘precedent’ for points that were not raised, not argued, and hence not analyzed”).

(U.S.S.C., June 23, 2017, Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Bd., docket 16-399, J. Gorsuch, dissenting).

A titre de rappel : la question litigieuse, résolue judiciairement, doit avoir été pleinement débattue et par les parties et par la cour pour valoir précédent.

Hurst v. Florida, Docket No. 14-7505

Stare decisis:

The doctrine of stare decisis is of fundamen­tal importance to the rule of law,” . . . our precedents are not sacrosanct. . . . We have overruled prior deci­sions where the necessity and propriety of doing so has been established.” Ring, 536 U. S., at 608 (quoting Pat­terson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172 (1989)). And in the Apprendi context, we have found that “stare decisis does not compel adherence to a decision whose ‘underpinnings’ have been ‘eroded’ by subsequent devel­opments of constitutional law.” Alleyne, 570 U. S., at ___ (SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring) (slip op., at 2); see also United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506, 519–520 (1995) (overruling Sinclair v. United States, 279 U. S. 263 (1929)); Ring, 536 U. S., at 609 (overruling Walton, 497 U. S., at 639); Alleyne, 570 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15) (overruling Harris v. United States, 536 U. S. 545 (2002)).

Time and subsequent cases have washed away the logic of Spaziano and Hildwin. The decisions are overruled to the extent they allow a sentencing judge to find an aggra­vating circumstance, independent of a jury’s factfinding, that is necessary for imposition of the death penalty.

(U.S.S.C., Jan. 12, 2016, Hurst v. Florida, Docket No. 14-7505, J. Sotomayor)

Règle du précédent : voir aussi la notion de ratio decidendi :

Même si la règle du précédent est d’importance juridique considérable, elle n’implique pas que les considérants d’une décision soient immuables. Une notion juridique peut subir une érosion, due aux développements subséquents du droit constitutionnel. Une liste de cas se penchant sur la règle du précédent est donnée.

Dans la présente espèce, la Cour procède à un revirement de jurisprudence et écarte le raisonnement de deux de ses décisions. Est désormais contraire à la Constitution fédérale une procédure pénale de fixation de la peine qui attribue au Juge de la fixation de la peine, et non au Jury, la compétence de se prononcer sur les faits constitutifs d’une circonstance aggravante, nécessaire au prononcé de la peine capitale.

Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, Docket 13-720

Patent: expiration: purchase of the patent against royalties: royalties after expiration ?: The answer is no.  In Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964), this Court held that a patent holder cannot charge royalties for the use of his invention after its patent term has expired. The sole question presented here is whether we should over­rule Brulotte. Adhering to principles of stare decisis, we decline to do so. Critics of the Brulotte rule must seek relief not from this Court but from Congress.

Partie’s agreement provided that Marvel would purchase Kimble’s patent in exchange for a lump sum (of about a half-million dollars) and a 3% royalty on Marvel’s future sales of the “Web Blaster” and similar prod­ucts. The parties set no end date for royalties.

In Brulotte, the patent holder retained ownership of the patent while licensing customers to use the patented article in exchange for royalty payments. See 379 U. S., at 29–30. By contrast, Kimble sold his whole patent to obtain royalties.

Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but only for a limited time. In crafting the patent laws, Congress struck a balance between fostering innovation and ensuring public access to discoveries. While a patent lasts, the patentee possesses exclusive rights to the pa­tented article—rights he may sell or license for royalty payments if he so chooses. See 35 U. S. C. §154(a)(1). But a patent typically expires 20 years from the day the appli­cation for it was filed. See §154(a)(2). And when the patent expires, the patentee’s prerogatives expire too, and the right to make or use the article, free from all re­striction, passes to the public. See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U. S. 225, 230 (1964).

In Scott Paper Co. v. Marcalus Mfg. Co., 326 U. S. 249 (1945), for example, we determined that a manufacturer could not agree to refrain from chal­lenging a patent’s validity. Allowing even a single company to restrict its use of an expired or invalid patent, we explained, “would deprive . . . the consuming public of the advantage to be derived” from free exploitation of the discovery. Id., at 256. And to permit such a result, whether or not authorized “by express contract,” would impermissibly undermine the patent laws. Id., at 255– 256; see also, e.g., Edward Katzinger Co. v. Chicago Metal­lic Mfg. Co., 329 U. S. 394, 400–401 (1947) (ruling that Scott Paper applies to licensees); Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U. S. 653, 668–675 (1969) (refusing to enforce a contract requiring a licensee to pay royalties while contesting a patent’s validity).

In Brulotte, The Court (by an 8-1 vote) held the agreement unenforceable—“unlawful per se”—to the extent it provided for the pay­ment of royalties “accruing after the last of the patents incorporated into the machines had expired.” 379 U. S., at 30, 32.

Yet parties can often find ways around Brulotte, ena­bling them to achieve those same ends. To start, Brulotte allows a licensee to defer payments for pre-expiration use of a patent into the post-expiration period; all the decision bars are royalties for using an invention after it has moved into the public domain. See 379 U. S., at 31; Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U. S. 100, 136 (1969). A licensee could agree, for example, to pay the licensor a sum equal to 10% of sales during the 20-yearpatent term, but to amortize that amount over 40 years.

Too, post-expiration royalties are allowable so long as tied to a non-patent right—even when closely related to a patent. See, e.g., 3 Milgrim on Licensing §18.07, at 18–16 to 18–17. That means, for example, that a license involving both a patent and a trade secret can set a 5% royalty during the patent period (as compensation for the two combined) and a 4% royalty afterward (as pay­ment for the trade secret alone). Finally and most broadly, Brulotte poses no bar to business arrangements other than royalties—all kinds of joint ventures, for example—that enable parties to share the risks and rewards of commer­cializing an invention.

The subject matter of Brulotte adds to the case for adhering to precedent. Brulotte lies at the intersection of two areas of law: property (patents) and contracts (licensing agreements). And we have often recognized that in just those contexts—“cases involving property and contract rights”—considerations favoring stare decisis are “at their acme.” E.g., Payne, 501 U. S., at 828; Khan, 522 U. S., at 20. That is because parties are especially likely to rely on such precedents when ordering their affairs.

It is not “necessary to specify the term . . . of the license” when a decision like Brulotte limits it “by law”.

The only legal erosion to which Kimble gestures is a change in the treatment of patent tying agreements—i.e., contracts conditioning a licensee’s right to use a patent on the purchase of an unpatented product. See Brief for Petitioners 43. When Brulotte was decided, those agreements counted as per se antitrust violations and patent misuse; now, they are unlawful only if the patent holder wields power in the relevant market. See Act of Nov. 19, 1988, §201, 102 Stat. 4676 (adding the market power requirement in the patent misuse context); Illinois Tool Works Inc. v. Independent Ink, Inc., 547 U. S. 28, 41–43 (2006) (relying on that legislative change to overrule antitrust decisions about tying and to adopt the same standard). But it is far from clear that the old rule of tying was among Brulotte’s legal underpinnings. Brulotte briefly analogized post-expiration royalty agreements to tying arrangements, but only after relating the statutory and caselaw basis for its holding and “concluding” that post-patent royalties are “unlaw­ful per se.” 379 U. S., at 32. And even if that analogy played some real role in Brulotte, the development of tying law would not undercut the decision—rather the opposite. Congress took the lead in changing the treatment of tying agreements and, in doing so, conspicuously left Brulotte in place. Indeed, Congress declined to enact bills that would have modified not only tying doctrine but also Brulotte. See supra, at 9 (citing S. 1200, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987), and S. 438, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. (1988)). That choice suggests congressional acquiescence in Brulotte, and so further supports adhering to stare decisis.

And in any event, Brulotte did not hinge on the mistake Kimble identifies. Although some of its language invoked economic concepts, the Court did not rely on the notion that post-patent royalties harm competition. Nor is that surprising. The patent laws—unlike the Sherman Act—do not aim to maximize competition (to a large extent, the opposite). And the patent term—unlike the “restraint of trade” standard—provides an all-encompassing bright-line rule, rather than calling for practice-specific analysis. So in deciding whether post-expiration royalties comport with patent law, Brulotte did not undertake to assess that practice’s likely competitive effects. Instead, it applied a categorical principle that all patents, and all benefits from them, must end when their terms expire. See Brulotte, 379 U. S., at 30–32. Patent (not antitrust) policy gave rise to the Court’s conclusion that post-patent royalty contracts are unenforceable—utterly “regardless of a demonstrable effect on competition.” 1 Hovenkamp §3.2d, at 3–10.

Books: Ayres & Klemperer, Limiting Patentees’ Market Power Without Reducing Innovation Incentives: The Perverse Benefits of Uncertainty and Non-Injunctive Remedies, 97 Mich. L. Rev. 985, 1027 (1999); R. Milgrim & E. Bensen, Milgrim on Licensing §18.05, p. 18–9 (2013); H. Hovenkamp, M. Janis, M. Lemley, & C. Leslie, IP and Antitrust §3.2e, p. 3–12.1 (2d ed., Supp. 2014) (Hovenkamp); D. Epstein, Eckstrom’s Licensing in Foreign and Domestic Operations §3.13, p. 3–13, and n. 2 (2014).

(U.S.S.C., June 22, 2015, Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, Docket 13-720, J. Kagan).

Brevets d’invention : expiration : attribution du brevet contre paiement de royalties : des royalties sont-elles dues après expiration du brevet ? La réponse est négative. Dans sa jurisprudence Brulotte (1964), la Cour a jugé que le détenteur d’un brevet ne pouvait plus facturer de royalties pour l’usage de son invention après l’expiration de son brevet. La seule question posée par la présente affaire consiste à savoir si la Cour devrait renverser sa décision Brulotte. Elle n’entend pas le faire, considérant le principe « stare decisis ». Ceux qui désirent un changement de jurisprudence à ce niveau doivent saisir le Congrès et non la Cour.

En l’espèce, l’accord des parties prévoyait que l’entreprise Marvel se portait acquéreuse du brevet de K. en échange d’une somme d’argent et de royalties calculées à 3% des ventes futures, par Marvel, du produit breveté. Les parties n’ont pas soumis le paiement des royalties à un terme.

Dans la jurisprudence Brulotte, le titulaire du brevet en a conservé la propriété, tout en accordant une licence à ses partenaires, licence permettant l’usage du produit breveté, cela contre paiement de royalties. Par contraste, en l’espèce, K. a vendu son brevet pour obtenir des royalties.

Le brevet confère à son titulaire des pouvoirs particuliers, mais pour une durée limitée. En rédigeant la législation sur les brevets d’invention, le Congrès fédéral a trouvé un équilibre entre la promotion de l’innovation et l’accès du public aux inventions. Pendant la durée effective du brevet, son titulaire détient un droit exclusif sur l’article breveté, droit qu’il peut vendre ou concéder sous le régime d’une licence contre paiement de royalties s’il le souhaite. Mais typiquement un brevet expire 20 ans depuis le jour où la demande de brevet a été déposée. Et quand le brevet expire, les prérogatives de son titulaire expirent également, et le droit de fabriquer et d’utiliser l’article, librement, passe au public.

Par exemple dans la jurisprudence Scott Paper Co. (1945), la Cour a jugé qu’un fabriquant ne pouvait pas s’engager à ne pas contester la validité d’un brevet. Permettre même à une seule entreprise de restreindre son droit d’usage d’un brevet expiré ou invalide, jugea la Cour, prive les consommateurs de l’avantage déduit d’un libre usage de l’invention. Et permettre un tel résultat, qu’il soit ou non contractuellement autorisé, porterait atteinte au droit des brevets d’invention. La Cour a de plus jugé dans une décision de 1947 que la jurisprudence Scott Paper s’appliquait aux preneurs de licences. Une décision de 1969 a en outre refusé d’ordonner l’exécution d’une clause contractuelle obligeant un preneur de licence à payer des royalties pendant un litige portant sur la validité du brevet.

Dans sa décision Brulotte, la Cour (à une majorité de 8-1) a refusé l’exécution d’une convention (la qualifiant de « per se » contraire au droit) dans la mesure où elle prévoyait le paiement de royalties venant à échéance après l’expiration du brevet.

Cependant les parties peuvent souvent trouver un moyen conforme au droit de contourner les effets de Brulotte. Tout d’abord, Brulotte permet à un preneur de licence d’effectuer après expiration du brevet ses paiements de royalties dues pendant la période avant expiration. La décision Brulotte n’interdit que de prévoir des royalties pour l’usage d’une invention après que celle-ci soit tombée dans le domaine public. 

Par exemple, un preneur de licence peut accepter de verser au donneur de licence une somme équivalente à 10% des ventes durant les 20 ans de la durée de vie du brevet, tout en amortissant ce montant sur 40 ans.

Dans le même ordre d’idée, des royalties dues après expiration du brevet sont admissibles aussi longtemps qu’elles sont liées à un droit qui ne découle pas du brevet. Ainsi, par exemple, une licence qui implique à la fois un brevet et un secret commercial peut prévoir des royalties à 5% pendant la durée du brevet (comme compensation pour la combinaison des deux éléments), et à 4% après l’expiration (comme compensation pour le partage du secret commercial). Finalement et de manière plus générale, Brulotte ne place aucune interdiction face à des arrangements commerciaux autres que des royautés (on peut penser ici aux divers types de joint ventures) qui permettent aux parties de partager les risques et les profits découlant de la commercialisation d’une invention.

La matière juridique traitée par la décision Brulotte renforce l’adhésion au principe de « stare decisis ». Brulotte se trouve à l’intersection de deux domaines du droit : le droit de propriété (brevets) et le droit des contrats (contrats de licence). Et la Cour a souvent jugé que précisément dans ces deux domaines, les éléments qui favorisent le respect du précédent méritent une considération toute particulière. Cela du fait que les parties se fondront très vraisemblablement sur ces précédents en organisant leurs affaires.

Remarque : il n’est pas nécessaire de prévoir un terme contractuel au contrat de licence lorsqu’une décision telle que Brulotte fixe une limite légale à la durée dudit contrat.

La seule érosion de la construction juridique précitée à laquelle K. se réfère est le changement du traitement juridique des « patent tying agreements », soit des contrats qui conditionnent le droit d’un preneur de licence d’utiliser un brevet à l’achat d’un article non breveté. A l’époque de la décision Brulotte, ces arrangements s’analysaient en violations « per se » du droit des cartels et en violation du droit des brevets. Aujourd’hui, ces arrangements ne sont illégaux que si le titulaire du brevet exerce son pouvoir sur la marché relevant. Mais il est loin d’être clair que l’ancienne règle relative aux « tying agreements » constituait l’un des fondements de la décision Brulotte. Et cette décision n’en a pas moins conclue que les royalties postérieures à l’expiration du brevet étaient « per se » illégales. En outre, c’est le Congrès fédéral qui a dirigé les modifications légales portant sur le régime des « tying agreements », tout en laissant la décision Brulotte en place, ce qui entraine une adhérence encore plus ferme au principe « stare decisis ».

Pour décider Brulotte, la Cour ne s’est pas référée à la théorie économique selon laquelle des royalties dues après l’expiration du brevet seraient de nature à porter atteinte à la concurrence, ce qui ne saurait surprendre. Le droit des brevets, au contraire du Sherman Act, n’a pas pour but de maximiser la concurrence (ce serait même plutôt le contraire). Et la théorie du jour de l’expiration du brevet, au contraire du standard des « restrictions au commerce », met à disposition une réglementation claire et précise, plutôt que d’impliquer une analyse au cas par cas. Ainsi en décidant si des royalties subséquentes à l’expiration satisfont aux exigences du droit des brevets, Brulotte s’est abstenue d’évaluer les probables effets de cette pratique sur la concurrence. Brulotte a appliqué un principe catégorique selon lequel tous les brevets, et tous les profits qui en découlent, doivent se terminer à l’expiration du brevet.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Com.

First Amendment: freedom of speech, elections, corporations: corporations and unions may establish a political action committee (PAC) for express advocacy or electioneering communications purposes. 2 U. S. C. §441b(b)(2); Austin is overruled, and thus provides no basis for allowing the Government to limit corporate independent expenditures; although the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,” §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions. It is a ban notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak, for a PAC is a separate association from the corporation; laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 464; the Court has recognized that the First Amendment applies to corporations, e.g., First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 778, n. 14, and extended this protection to the context of political speech, see, e.g., NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 428–429. Addressing challenges to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the Buckley Court upheld limits on direct contributions to candidates, 18 U. S. C. §608(b), recognizing a governmental interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. 424 U. S., at 25–26; First Amendment protections do not depend on the speaker’s “financial ability to engage in public discussion.” Buckley, supra, at 49; differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment, and there is no support for the view that the Amendment’s original meaning would permit suppressing media corporations’ political speech; corporate political speech can be banned to prevent corruption or its appearance. The Buckley Court found this rationale “sufficiently important” to allow contribution limits but refused to extend that reasoning to expenditure limits, 424 U.S., at 25; because §441b is not limited to corporations or associations created in foreign countries or funded predominately by foreign shareholders, it would be overbroad even if the Court were to recognize a compelling governmental interest in limiting foreign influence over the Nation’s political process; relevant factors in deciding whether to adhere to stare decisis, beyond workability—the precedent’s antiquity, the reliance interests at stake, and whether the decision was well reasoned; the Court returns to the principle established in Buckley and Bellotti that the Government may not suppress political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity; the Buckley Court explained that disclosure can be justified by a governmental interest in providing “the electorate with information” about election-related spending sources; the disclaimer and disclosure requirements are valid as applied to Citizens United’s ads; “insure that the voters are fully informed” about who is speaking, Buckley, supra, at 76; disclosure is the less-restrictive alternative to more comprehensive speech regulations; for these same reasons, this Court affirms the application of the §§201 and 311 disclaimer and disclosure requirements to Hillary (U.S.S.Ct., 21.01.10, Citizens United v. Federal Election Com., J. Kennedy).

Premier Amendement : liberté d’expression, élections, personnes morales : les personnes morales et les syndicats peuvent établir un « Political Action Commiteee (PAC) » aux fins d’exprimer des opinions ou aux fins de participer au débat d’idées dans le contexte électoral. Les principes énoncés en l’espèce par la jurisprudence Austin sont ici déclarés caducs. Cette décision ne saurait dès lors constituer une base permettant au gouvernement de limiter les dépenses indépendantes des personnes morales. Bien que le Premier Amendement dispose que le Congrès ne saurait promulguer de loi restreignant la liberté d’expression, la disposition légale litigieuse, qui prohibe les dépenses indépendantes des personnes morales, constitue une interdiction d’expression, soutenue par des dispositions pénales.  Il s’agit d’une interdiction malgré que des PAC pourvus de la liberté d’expression puissent être constitués par des personnes morales, dans la mesure où le PAC est une association séparée de la personne morale. Les lois qui portent ainsi atteinte à la liberté d’expression sont soumises au « strict scrutiny standard », qui impose au gouvernement de prouver que la restriction est fondée sur un intérêt prépondérant et qu’elle est restrictivement façonnée pour promouvoir cet intérêt. La Cour a jugé que le Premier Amendement s’appliquait aux personnes morales, y compris dans le cadre de l’expression politique. Se prononçant sur une contestation dirigée contre le Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, la décision Buckley a reconnu la validité des limites fixées aux contributions directes versées aux candidats, reconnaissant un intérêt gouvernemental à prévenir l’apparence d’une corruption. La protection conférée par le Premier Amendement ne dépend pas de la capacité de l’orateur, au plan financier, de s’engager dans un débat public. Traiter les médias différemment des autres personnes morales n’est pas compatible avec le Premier Amendement. En outre, il n’est pas soutenable de prétendre que la signification originale de cet Amendement pourrait permettre la suppression de la liberté d’expression politique des médias. La liberté d’expression des personnes morales peut être proscrite pour prévenir la corruption ou l’apparence de corruption. La décision Buckley jugea ce fondement suffisamment important pour fixer des limites aux contributions mais refusa d’étendre ce raisonnement aux limites de dépenses. L’application de la loi ici en question n’est pas limitée aux personnes morales ou aux associations créées à l’étranger ou financées de manière prépondérante par des actionnaires étrangers. Dès lors, cette loi déploierait des effets trop étendus même si la Cour reconnaissait un intérêt gouvernemental prépondérant à la limitation de l’influence étrangère sur le processus politique des Etats-Unis. En se prononçant sur l’application ou non du principe du précédent (Stare decisis), les facteurs à considérer sont la praticabilité de la décision antérieure, son ancienneté, la nature de la confiance qu’elle suscite, et la qualité de ses considérants.  La Cour revient au principe établit par Buckley et Bellotti, selon lequel le gouvernement ne peut pas supprimer la liberté d’expression politique des personnes morales. Le précédent Buckley explique que la publication peut être justifiée par un intérêt gouvernemental en apportant à l’électorat des informations au sujet des sources de financement liées à une élection. Les exigences de disclaimer et de publication sont valablement appliquées aux publicités en question dans la présente espèce. Assurer que les votants sont complètement informés au sujet de l’identité de l’orateur (Buckley). La publication est l’alternative la moins restrictive et permet d’éviter que l’expression ne soit davantage régulée. La Cour affirme l’application à la présente espèce des exigences de disclaimer et de publication.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Com.

Stare decisis: relevant factors in deciding whether to adhere to stare decisis, beyond workability—the precedent’s antiquity, the reliance interests at stake, and whether the decision was well reasoned (U.S.S.Ct., 21.01.10, Citizens United v. Federal Election Com., J. Kennedy).

Stare decisis : les facteurs relevants pour décider de l’application ou non de la théorie du précédent : praticabilité de la décision antérieure, ancienneté de dite décision, intérêts en jeu fondés sur la confiance, décision antérieure bien motivée ou non.