“ Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention, where such components are uncombined in whole or in part, in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer. ”

“ Windows abstracted from a tangible copy no doubt is information—a detailed set of instructions—and thus might be compared to a blueprint (or anything containing design information, e.g., a schematic, template, or prototype) . A blueprint may contain precise instructions for the construction and combination of the components of a patented device, but it is not itself a combinable component of that device. AT&T and its amici do not suggest otherwise. ”

“ Applied here, the presumption tugs strongly against construing §271 (f) to encompass as a "component" not only a physical copy of software, but also software's intangible code, and to render "supplie [d] ... from the United States" not only exported copies of software, but also duplicates made abroad. Foreign law alone, not United States law, currently governs the manufacture and sale of components of patented inventions in foreign countries. If AT&T desires to prevent copying abroad, its remedy lies in obtaining and enforcing foreign patents. ”

“ As a matter of logic, one cannot supply one hundred components of a patented invention without first making one hundred copies of the component ....") . He further observed: "The only true difference between making and supplying software components and physical components [of other patented inventions] is that copies of software components are easier to make and transport." Id., at 1374. But nothing in §271 (f) 's text, Judge Rader maintained, renders ease of copying a relevant, no less decisive, factor in triggering liability for infringement. See ibid. We agree. ”

“ B As the parties agree, an inventor can patent a machine that carries out a certain process, and a computer may constitute such a machine when it executes commands—given to it by code—that allow it to carry out that process. ”

“ As a principle of general application, moreover, we have stated that courts should "assume that legislators take account of the legitimate sovereign interests of other nations when they write American laws." ”

“ Nor could Deepsouth be held liable as a direct infringer, for it did not make, sell, or use the patented invention—the fully assembled deveining machine—within the United States. The parts of the machine were not themselves patented, we noted, hence export of those parts, unassembled, did not rank as an infringement of Laitram’s patent. ”

“ Ibid.; cf. post, at 2 (STEVENS,J., dissenting) (" [A] master disk is the functional equivalent of a warehouse of components ... that Microsoft fully expects to be incorporated into foreign-manufactured computers.") .
Judge Rader, dissenting, noted that "supplying" is ordinarily understood to mean an activity separate and distinct from any subsequent "copying, replicating, or reproducing—in effect manufacturing. ”