''Quality King Distributors Inc. v. L'anza Research International Inc.'', 523 U.S. 135 (1998), was a decision by the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
over whether a
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
holder could restrict redistribution of material containing copyrighted content (authorized by the copyright holder) which is imported into the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
as so-called "
grey market
A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term " parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market pr ...
" goods.
Opinion of the Court
The Supreme Court found that the copyright holder could not prevent re-importation of the products it had authorized for export from the United States.
This case did not address the importation of products made outside the United States under authority of the copyright holder. The Court addressed that issue in ''
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'', 568 U.S. 519 (2013), holding that those sales were also qualifying "first sales", and that copyright holders could not restrict trafficking of those works after those sales.
See also
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First-sale doctrine
The first-sale doctrine (also sometimes referred to as the "right of first sale" or the "first sale rule") is an American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellec ...
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List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 523
This is a list of all United States Supreme Court cases from volume 523 of the ''United States Reports
The ''United States Reports'' () are the official record ( law reports) of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, ord ...
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List of United States Supreme Court cases
This page serves as an index of lists of United States Supreme Court cases. The United States Supreme Court is the highest federal court of the United States.
By Chief Justice
Court historians and other legal scholars consider each Chief J ...
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Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume
The following is a complete list of cases decided by the United States Supreme Court organized by volume of the ''United States Reports'' in which they appear. This is a list of volumes of ''U.S. Reports'', and the links point to the contents of e ...
External links
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{{USCopyrightActs
United States Supreme Court cases
United States copyright case law
1998 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court