Citing precedent going back to the 1600s, the justices agreed with Impression Products that as soon as a product was in the hands of consumers, patent protection was finished. “Once sold, the Return Program cartridges passed outside of the patent monopoly,” the unanimous court decision, “and whatever rights Lexmark retained are a matter of the contracts with its purchasers, not the patent law.” Lexmark can still try to enforce its agreements with individual customers who don’t return the empties as promised, but the agreements don’t apply to third parties.
IANAL, but this sounds to me like this opens the door to, for example, third-party aftermarket upgrades to add a heated build chamber (deformable insulators and all) as long as the customer installs the upgrade rather than either company.
https://hbr.org/2017/06/the-u-s-supreme-court-is-reining-in-patent-trolls-which-is-a-win-for-innovation
I’m still not sure it applies that way. And even if it did, I think the company would go after the 3rd party manufacturer of the chambers or after you if they wanted to.
Actually, it would seem the question is if a person was to purchase a patented heat chamber and combine it with another purchased product, say a 3D printer, they could easily combine them and resell them as a 3d printer with heated chamber? This ruling says they would be within their rights on the two original patents (heat chamber and the 3d printer,) but not for a patent on the printer with the heated chamber.
They would still be in violation of the 3rd, because that patent holder hasn’t received the benefit of the patent yet, which is the right to first sale.
Commenting for further updates.
The Terms Of Service can ban you from doing stuff with the printers parts you buy, but apparatus patents alone can’t. You can do what you want with a physical object that you buy, from a patent standpoint.