It is deja vu all over again, as the Supreme Court once again has agreed to review a controversial patent ruling of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The issue this time: whether a patent owner’s rights were exhausted by a license agreement and subsequent sale of product pursuant to the license.

With the Supreme Court’s 2007 decisions in KSR v. Teleflex and MedImmune v. Genentech and its 2006 decision in eBay v. MercExchange, it has reshaped the landscape of patent law by rejecting the views of the Federal Circuit - the very court that was established to help bring uniformity to patent law. Now the nation’s highest court has an opportunity to do that again.