Aftermarket, Repair, and Spare Parts IP Toolkit: Design Rights, Repair Doctrine, and Software Locks

By Casey Scott McKay · 2026-07-05

The aftermarket is where intellectual property doctrine collides with the ordinary expectation that a thing you bought can be fixed, and the collision produces some of the least intuitive law in the field. This toolkit collects it. It works the repair and reconstruction line, the exhaustion decisions that stripped post-sale restrictions of patent force, and the section 117 provision enacted for exactly this problem. It then turns to what manufacturers use instead: design patents on individual components, software authentication that pairs parts to devices, and information withheld as confidential. It closes on marketing and refurbishment, warranty and antitrust exposure, right to repair compliance, and a demand letter triage.

IP and Technology > General IP | Toolkit | Published 5 July 2026 - Updated 28 July 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. The aftermarket is where intellectual property doctrine collides with the ordinary expectation that a thing you bought can be fixed, and the collision produces some of the least intuitive law in the field. This toolkit collects it. It works the repair and reconstruction line, the exhaustion decisions that stripped post-sale restrictions of patent force, and the section 117 provision enacted for exactly this problem. It then turns to what manufacturers use instead: design patents on individual components, software authentication that pairs parts to devices, and information withheld as confidential. It closes on marketing and refurbishment, warranty and antitrust exposure, right to repair compliance, and a demand letter triage.

Keywords: aftermarket IP toolkit · repair and reconstruction · permissible repair · exhaustion after Impression Products · section 117 service copy · component design patents · no must match exception · total profits · LKQ obviousness · parts pairing · section 1201 circumvention · triennial exemptions · trafficking gap · information provenance · clean room · nominative reference · refurbishment disclosure · warranty anti-tying · aftermarket antitrust · right to repair statutes

Start Here

A tractor, a coffee machine, a ventilator, a phone, and a combine harvester have the same legal problem.

Something on them wears out. The owner wants it replaced. The manufacturer would prefer that the replacement come from the manufacturer, be fitted by an authorised technician, and cost what the manufacturer says it costs.

Intellectual property is the instrument used to arrange that, and it works far better than the doctrine suggests it should — because the doctrine that governs repair is mostly favourable to the repairer, and the mechanisms manufacturers actually use route around it entirely.

Which is the real subject. Not whether repair is lawful, which it usually is, but what happens when the part will not work until software says it may.

Classify the part before analysing anything, because the classification determines which regime governs. Wear items, functional internal components, visible external body parts, electronic modules with firmware, consumables, and software and tools each behave differently, and most of the analysis disappears once the category is fixed.

Repair, Reconstruction, and Exhaustion

Aro Manufacturing v. Convertible Top Replacement establishes that a purchaser of a patented article may preserve its useful life by replacing worn or broken unpatented components, from any source, and that there is no legally recognisable difference between replacing one part and several so long as the article as a whole is not effectively made anew.

Wilbur-Ellis v. Kuther goes further, permitting adaptation and modification — resizing a patented machine to process a different can size was repair, not reconstruction.

Reconstruction is narrow. Making a new article after the original is spent. Rebuilding from a scrapped hulk qualifies; replacing components on a functioning device does not.

Jazz Photo v. International Trade Commission confirms that a manufacturer's single-use characterisation does not control; what controls is whether the article was spent.

Then exhaustion, which removed most of what manufacturers had built.

Quanta Computer v. LG Electronics holds that an authorised sale of an article substantially embodying a patent exhausts the rights in it.

Impression Products v. Lexmark International holds that a patentee's sale exhausts all patent rights in the item regardless of any restriction imposed, and that an authorised sale abroad exhausts United States patent rights — aligning with Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons.

Post-sale restrictions therefore do not survive as patent rights. They may bind the immediate purchaser in contract; they do not run with the goods and do not reach a downstream buyer.

Bowman v. Monsanto supplies the limit: exhaustion permits use and resale of the article sold, not the making of new articles — the exhaustion counterpart of the repair and reconstruction line.

And 17 U.S.C. § 117 protects the service copy, permitting a person maintaining or repairing a machine to make a copy made solely by activating the machine, used for no other purpose, and destroyed on completion. It was enacted after independent service organisations found that switching on a customer's machine created a RAM copy the manufacturer characterised as infringement, and it is chronically underused.

Two conclusions for a supplier. Supplying an unpatented component for a permissible repair is not contributory infringement — 35 U.S.C. § 271(c) requires a non-staple component known to be especially made for an infringing use. And a combination patent on the assembled product cannot reach a replacement component.

One for a manufacturer. The only reliable patent protection against a replacement part is a claim covering that part, which makes it a drafting decision rather than an enforcement one.

Component Design Patents

This is where a United States manufacturer's strongest position sits.

35 U.S.C. § 171 protects the ornamental design of an article of manufacture, and a component is an article of manufacture. A fender, a bumper cover, a lamp housing, a grille, a door skin — each can carry its own design patent.

Which means a supplier making a visually identical replacement infringes, even though the repair is permissible and the patent on the product as a whole is exhausted.

There is no must-match exception. Several jurisdictions provide that design rights are unenforceable against parts restoring a complex product to its original appearance, precisely to keep the spare parts market open. The United States has considered such a provision repeatedly and not adopted one.

And the remedy is severe. 35 U.S.C. § 289 permits the infringer's total profits from the article of manufacture without apportionment, and Samsung Electronics v. Apple held the article may be a component — which narrows the exposure for complex goods and not for a body panel.

Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa supplies the ordinary observer test, assessed against the prior art, and it does not require much similarity.

LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Technology Operations changed the defensive position materially, discarding the rigid framework that required a primary reference basically the same as the claimed design and replacing it with a flexible obviousness approach aligned to the ordinary 35 U.S.C. § 103 factors — which makes component design patents genuinely attackable for the first time in decades, and the party that benefits is the aftermarket supplier.

Four questions for a supplier. Is there a design patent on this part, searched by classification and assignee rather than keyword. Does it survive obviousness under the current standard, searching prior generations and adjacent models. Can the part be functionally equivalent without visual identity — possible for a bracket, impossible for a panel that must match. And is the claim drafted in solid lines, which is avoided by any visible change, or with broken lines, which is broader.

Trade dress is a weaker parallel, because functionality bars protection for features dictated by fit and function and a part that must match to work is close to definitionally functional, making 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) protection thin.

Software, Which Decides the Outcome

Everything above is doctrine. This is practice.

Ask one thing: will the part function when fitted? If the answer depends on a manufacturer's authentication, the patent and trademark analysis was preliminary.

Parts pairing — a chip in the component, a check against a signature or a server, and an unauthenticated part that does not work or works in a degraded mode with a persistent warning — converts a lawful mechanical repair into a software authorisation problem.

The analysis moves to 17 U.S.C. § 1201, which prohibits circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work, separately from any infringement.

The circuits disagree. Chamberlain Group v. Skylink Technologies required a nexus between circumvention and copyright infringement, which meant no claim where the circumvention enabled nothing but ordinary use of a purchased product. MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment expressly disagreed, holding section 1201(a) creates a right distinct from copyright with no nexus requirement.

That split is unresolved and it is the single most consequential open question in repair law, because it determines whether an entire category of activity is lawful depending on where it happens.

The triennial rulemaking has granted repair exemptions of expanding scope across cycles — motorised land vehicles, smartphones and home appliances, medical devices, and commercial and industrial equipment, in varying formulations.

Three cautions. They expire every three years and renewal is not automatic. Their operative text is narrower than their summaries. And they permit acts of circumvention while leaving the trafficking provisions in force, which means a technician may be permitted to circumvent and prohibited from obtaining the tool. That gap is the practical heart of the problem.

Interoperability has its own routes. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(f) contains a statutory exception, and Sega Enterprises v. Accolade established that intermediate copying to discover unprotected interface elements can be fair use. Two separate routes, both narrower than they appear.

And trade secret law fills the gaps. Diagnostic protocols, error code tables, calibration procedures, and service documentation are frequently withheld as confidential — a lawful strategy with the practical effect of a legal prohibition, and the one right to repair statutes dismantle first.

Marketing, Refurbishment, Warranty, and Antitrust

Nominative reference is permitted with limits. A supplier may state that its component fits a branded model where the product is not readily identifiable without the mark, no more of the mark is used than necessary, and nothing suggests sponsorship. The recurring failures are all on the third limb: manufacturer logos in listing images, packaging imitation, the words authorised or official or genuine applied to a compatible part, and model names in domain names. Fix the listing template once and it covers the catalogue.

Refurbished goods have their own rule. Champion Spark Plug v. Sanders permits resale of reconditioned goods under the original mark provided the reconditioning is adequately disclosed, and Prestonettes v. Coty confirms that a mark does not prohibit truthful description. Disclose on the product, the packaging, and the listing — and screen for material differences, because genuineness does not save a sale of an item that differs materially from what the mark represents.

15 U.S.C. § 2302(c) prohibits conditioning a written warranty on the use of a branded article or service unless provided free of charge or authorised by waiver. A warranty void if a third-party part is fitted is unlawful on its face; declining coverage for damage the third-party part actually caused is a factual question about that repair.

And the antitrust layer is real. Eastman Kodak v. Image Technical Services held that a single brand's parts and service can constitute relevant markets notwithstanding competition in the primary equipment market, because information and switching costs prevent purchasers protecting themselves at original purchase. Courts have distinguished it where the restriction was disclosed at original sale, Verizon Communications v. Trinko sharply limits refusal-to-deal claims, and Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink removed the presumption of market power from a patent in tying cases. Patent misuse remains available as a defence where a patentee has impermissibly broadened the grant with anticompetitive effect.

State right to repair statutes require manufacturers to make parts, tools, diagnostic software, and documentation available to independent providers and owners on fair and reasonable terms. They do not override intellectual property and they do not authorise circumvention — and they change the commercial architecture by removing the information barrier, which is where the practical difficulty of independent repair actually lives.

The Reconstruction Line, Tested

Practitioners want a rule for where repair ends, and the cases give a direction rather than a boundary. Working the fact patterns is what makes it usable.

Replacing a single worn component on a functioning device. Repair, squarely, and Aro says the number of components does not matter by itself.

Replacing several components in sequence over years. Repair. The article was never spent at any point.

Replacing several at once on a functioning device. Still repair on the Aro reasoning, and the point at which a court starts to look harder.

Rebuilding from a discarded shell. Reconstruction, because the article was spent and what emerges is a second creation.

Buying scrapped units for the express purpose of rebuilding them. The strongest reconstruction case, because the purpose evidence points at manufacture rather than preservation.

Refurbishing a single-use product for a second cycle. Jazz Photo treated this as repair for domestically sold units, and the manufacturer's single-use label did not control.

Adapting the article to a different size or specification. Wilbur-Ellis permits it, which is broader than most practitioners expect — the owner may modify as well as preserve.

Growing a new generation from a purchased article. Reconstruction in substance on Bowman's reasoning, because the buyer made new articles rather than using the one sold.

Two drafting consequences for a manufacturer. Packaging characterisation carries no weight, so single-use labelling achieves nothing on its own. And the only reliable patent protection against a replacement part is a claim covering that part, decided at drafting rather than at enforcement.

One for a supplier. Purpose evidence matters. A business that buys functioning units to harvest parts, or buys scrap to rebuild, generates documents that read as manufacturing. A business that supplies components to owners for fitting does not.

Information Provenance

Reverse engineering from a lawfully acquired product and use of confidential service documentation lead to opposite answers on identical technical facts, and the difference is entirely about where the information came from.

Lawful routes. Open market purchase and examination. Published specifications and public regulatory filings. Observation in operation. Information from customers who own the product and are under no restriction.

Dangerous routes. Documentation obtained under a confidentiality obligation, whether the obligation binds the supplier directly or the source who provided it. Information from a former employee of the manufacturer. Dealer portal access obtained through borrowed credentials. Anything acquired under a licence prohibiting the use.

Run a clean room where the stakes justify it. One team examines and documents; a second team, with access only to the functional specification produced, designs the part.

Document acquisition of every unit examined — invoice, date, source, serial number — because in a trade secret dispute the ability to show independent derivation is the entire defence and it is built at the time or not at all.

Screen hires from the manufacturer, because a design engineer joining from the original manufacturer creates a misappropriation risk no downstream discipline cures, and record the isolation where such a hire proceeds.

And note the manufacturer's mirror position. Withholding diagnostic protocols, error code tables, calibration procedures, and service documentation as confidential is lawful and has the practical effect of a prohibition — and it is the barrier repair statutes dismantle first, which means a strategy built on it has a visible horizon.

Demand Letter Triage

Most aftermarket demand letters assert something that does not survive analysis, and sorting them quickly is the highest-value routine task in this practice.

Patent infringement by the replacement part. Check whether the claim covers the part or the combination. If the combination, Impression Products exhausted it on sale and Aro makes the customer's replacement permissible. Most letters end here.

Contributory infringement by supplying the part. 35 U.S.C. § 271(c) requires a non-staple component especially made for an infringing use, and permissible repair leaves no direct infringement to contribute to.

Breach of a post-sale restriction. Check who is bound. It may bind the original purchaser in contract; it does not run with the goods as a patent right and does not reach a downstream buyer.

Trademark infringement by the compatibility statement. Almost always nominative use, unless the listing carries logos, packaging imitation, or authorisation language — fixable in an afternoon.

Trade dress in the part. Functionality is usually dispositive where the part must fit.

Design patent infringement on a visible component. Take this seriously. Run Egyptian Goddess on infringement, LKQ on obviousness, and price the 35 U.S.C. § 289 exposure honestly.

Circumvention under 17 U.S.C. § 1201. Take this seriously too. Identify the circuit, the measure, the current exemption text, and whether the tools used were lawfully obtained.

Two of seven are worth real work. Respond to the other five with a short accurate letter and a fixed listing, and do not settle them — because settling weak assertions teaches the sender to send more.

For a manufacturer sending letters, the mirror lesson is that five of the seven damage credibility and invite a declaratory judgment action. Send the two that hold.

Sector Adjustments

Automotive has the most developed aftermarket in the world and the heaviest component design patent coverage, which makes LKQ the most significant decision the sector has seen in years. Telematics and data access are the emerging battleground and run through the sector's own access arrangements rather than through general repair law.

Agricultural equipment produced the modern right to repair movement, driven by software locks on machinery whose downtime is measured in a lost harvest. The manufacturers' position rests on emissions compliance, safety, and software integrity; the operators' rests on the fact that a combine cannot wait a week.

Consumer electronics is the parts pairing centre of gravity, and repair economics frequently decide the outcome regardless of legality. Manufacturer self-service programmes satisfy the form of repair access; the pairing behaviour determines the substance.

Medical devices carry a genuine regulatory overlay — servicing can affect compliance status — alongside a serviceable claim that it is invoked more broadly than warranted, and 17 U.S.C. § 117 matters most to the independent service organisations working there.

Aviation and rail operate under formal parts approval processes, which makes the aftermarket regulated rather than merely contested and puts certification ahead of intellectual property in the analysis.

Industrial and commercial equipment is where the service copy provision does the most work, and where later statutes have extended coverage.

Printers and consumables produced Impression Products and rebuilt equivalent control through authentication chips within a few years — the clearest illustration of a business model redirected from patent law into engineering after losing the patent argument.

And accessories rather than replacement parts raise no repair doctrine question at all; the analysis is compatibility, nominative reference, and any authentication the host device performs.

Building Each Side's Position

For a manufacturer, four durable positions.

A design patent portfolio on genuinely ornamental visible components, filed at design freeze with broken lines claiming the distinctive elements, at multiple scopes on the parts that carry replacement volume, and drafted with the prior art in mind because they will be attacked on obviousness rather than distinguished on infringement.

Utility patents claiming the component itself, not the assembly, because that is the only patent protection surviving exhaustion against a replacement part.

A service business competing on speed, quality, and warranty rather than on exclusion — the only aftermarket position with no regulatory horizon at all.

And safety restrictions that are genuinely safety-based and substantiated with a specific failure mode. Where a manufacturer can show one, the argument works with regulators and legislatures; where it cannot, it reads as pretext and weakens every other position.

Five fragile positions with visible expiry dates. Post-sale contractual restrictions stripped of patent force. Single-use labelling that does not control the analysis. Parts pairing used purely to exclude. Warranty conditioning that breaches 15 U.S.C. § 2302(c). And information withholding that repair statutes dismantle first.

For a supplier, the strong ground is the repair doctrine itself, exhaustion, the 17 U.S.C. § 117 service copy, nominative reference in marketing, and clear disclosure on refurbished goods. Most of a parts business rests on these and they are secure.

The weak ground is visually identical body parts covered by design patents, circumvention outside a current exemption, and anything built on information obtained under a confidentiality obligation.

Five operational disciplines close the gap. A part classification register recording category, patent search result, design patent position, authentication requirement, and the date each was checked. Documented acquisition of every unit examined. A fixed listing template satisfying nominative use across the catalogue without per-item review. A circumvention log for every part requiring authentication work. And a demand letter runbook implementing the seven-assertion triage.

And one strategic point. Design patent exposure concentrates in visible components, which is a small share of most catalogues and a large share of the revenue in collision parts. A supplier that knows which items carry that exposure can price it, insure it, or design around it; a supplier that does not will discover it in a letter demanding total profits.

Governance recommendations for both sides are the same in shape. Put counsel in the product design review, where the component claim, the design filing, the authentication architecture, and the classification decisions are all made and all become irreversible. Price the regulatory horizon into the roadmap rather than the litigation budget, because a repair statute arrives as a compliance obligation across a product line rather than as a case that settles. And audit the terms annually — warranty language, point-of-sale disclosure, dealer agreements, and service network terms each accumulate provisions nobody re-reads and several of which are unlawful in the form they take.

Why the Doctrine Drifted From the Practice

It is worth asking how a body of law this favourable to repair produced a market this hostile to it.

Because every doctrine here was built for physical objects. Aro concerned convertible fabric. Champion Spark Plug concerned spark plugs. Exhaustion assumes that once an article leaves the seller's hands, the seller's control over it ends as a practical matter as well as a legal one.

Software broke that assumption. A manufacturer can now maintain a continuing relationship with an article after sale — updating it, authenticating its components, revoking its functions, and observing its use. Exhaustion says the patent is spent; it does not say the server must answer.

Which means the legal question shifted category. For most of the twentieth century the aftermarket question was whether an act infringed. It is now whether an act is technically possible without defeating a measure, and whether defeating that measure is separately unlawful under a statute written to protect films from copying.

17 U.S.C. § 1201 was not designed for this, and the Chamberlain nexus requirement was an attempt to keep it in its lane. MDY declined to follow, and the unresolved split is the residue of that mismatch.

The triennial exemption process is the accommodation and it is a poor one — a three-year cycle, narrow operative text, a trafficking gap that authorises acts nobody can perform, and a burden on petitioners to re-justify each time.

Which is why the action moved to legislatures. Statutes requiring parts, tools, and documentation on fair and reasonable terms address the practical barrier directly without needing to resolve any doctrinal question.

A prediction, offered as one. The design patent question and the parts pairing question will resolve in opposite directions and through different institutions. LKQ has already begun narrowing component design protection through ordinary obviousness doctrine, which is a court-driven correction requiring no legislation. Parts pairing will be addressed by statute, because no doctrinal route reaches it cleanly and legislatures have shown they will act.

What will not resolve on its own is the circuit split, which has stood for well over a decade and governs whether an entire category of repair activity is lawful depending on where it happens. That one needs the Supreme Court or Congress, and neither has shown much appetite.

A Closing Note

The law of repair is more favourable to the owner than almost anyone assumes. Aro permits replacement without limit short of reconstruction. Impression Products exhausts patent rights on sale regardless of restrictions. 17 U.S.C. § 117 protects the service copy. Champion Spark Plug permits disclosed resale of reconditioned goods.

And none of that helps when the part will not work until the manufacturer's server says it may.

Which is the whole subject. The doctrine answers a question the market stopped asking, and the operative controls are a design patent on a panel, a chip in a component, and a diagnostic protocol nobody outside the dealer network has.

So do the doctrinal analysis, because it is cheap and it disposes of most demand letters — then ask the only question that decides the commercial outcome: will the part work when it is fitted? If the answer depends on a server, the intellectual property analysis was preliminary and the real work is a circumvention question, a legislative one, or a negotiation.

What Owners and Repairers Actually Ask

"Can I fix my own machine?" Yes. Repair is permissible, exhaustion is broad, and no patent or copyright doctrine stops an owner replacing a worn part. Whether the machine will run afterwards is a different question, and it is the one that matters.

"Can I buy the part from anyone?" Generally yes, unless the part itself is patented or carries a design patent. Supplying a component for a permissible repair is not contributory infringement.

"The manual says the warranty is void if I use a third-party part." That statement is unlawful as a general condition under 15 U.S.C. § 2302(c). The manufacturer may decline coverage for damage the third-party part actually caused, which is a factual question about that repair.

"The part is genuine but the machine will not accept it." This is parts pairing, and it is the real barrier. The question is whether defeating the authentication is circumvention under 17 U.S.C. § 1201, which depends on the circuit, the current exemption text, and whether a lawful tool exists.

"Can I advertise that I repair branded products?" Yes, nominatively — identifying the product, using no more of the mark than necessary, and not implying authorisation.

"Can I sell refurbished units under the original brand?" Yes, with clear and prominent disclosure of the reconditioned status under Champion Spark Plug — and no, where the unit differs materially from what the mark represents.

"Can I reverse engineer the diagnostic protocol?" From a lawfully acquired product, generally yes on the Sega line and under the 17 U.S.C. § 1201(f) interoperability exception, subject to the circumvention questions and to provenance — material obtained under a confidentiality obligation is a different analysis entirely.

"The manufacturer sent me a letter." Read what it actually asserts. Most aftermarket demand letters assert patent infringement where the patent is exhausted, trademark infringement where the use is nominative, or breach of terms that do not bind the recipient. The letters that matter assert a design patent on a visible part or a circumvention claim, and those are the two worth analysing carefully.

"Do the repair statutes help me?" Indirectly and substantially. They do not override intellectual property and they do not authorise circumvention, and by requiring parts, tools, and documentation on fair and reasonable terms they remove the information barrier that makes independent repair impractical even where it is lawful.

A Worked Example

A supplier wants to enter the aftermarket for a mid-market appliance, with six parts in the initial range: a door seal, a pump, a control board, an outer door panel, a filter cartridge, and a diagnostic cable.

The door seal. Wear item. Repair doctrine at its strongest, combination patents exhausted, no plausible design patent on a gasket. Proceed.

The pump. Functional internal component. Search for a utility patent claiming the pump itself rather than the appliance. If none, proceed; if one exists, the part is out or needs a design-around.

The control board. Electronic module. The question is whether the appliance authenticates it, and if it does this is a circumvention analysis before it is anything else — identify the circuit, read the current exemption text, and check whether the programming tool can be lawfully obtained.

The outer door panel. Visible external part. Search for a component design patent; almost certainly one exists. Run LKQ obviousness against prior generations and adjacent models, and price the 35 U.S.C. § 289 exposure before committing tooling. Highest-risk item in the range and the one that will attract the letter.

The filter cartridge. Consumable. Check for authentication. Impression Products removed any post-sale restriction from patent law's reach, so if there is no chip and no patent on the cartridge itself, proceed confidently.

The diagnostic cable. Not a part at all — a tool. The analysis is whether it circumvents, whether the protocol was derived lawfully, and whether the trafficking provisions reach its distribution. The item most likely to generate a section 1201 claim and the one that needs the clean room record.

Total analysis. Two parts proceed immediately. Two need a patent search. One needs a design patent invalidity opinion and a priced risk. One needs a full circumvention and provenance file.

Notice the distribution of effort. The two items that look most trivial — a panel and a cable — carry nearly all the exposure, and the mechanical components everyone worries about carry almost none.

That inversion is characteristic of the field, and it is exactly what the classification step exists to surface before the tooling budget is committed.

Scale and Cadence

A supplier with forty catalogue items can run the full analysis in a fortnight. A supplier with four thousand cannot and should not try.

Sample by category. Full analysis on every visible external component and every authenticated module; a documented default for the wear items and internal components the doctrine already covers.

State the sampling method in the register, because a considered approach documented at the time is defensible and the same approach undocumented reads as a gap.

Review the sample annually against the demand letter file, because the letters tell you which categories manufacturers actually assert — better targeting information than any prior assumption about where the risk sits.

Annually, six items. Re-run the classification register for new catalogue additions. Confirm acquisition records exist for every unit examined in the year. Check the triennial exemption text and diarise the next cycle. Re-read the listing template against what the marketplace catalogue data is actually rendering. Audit warranty and service terms against 15 U.S.C. § 2302(c). And map the repair statutes against the product lines, because coverage is defined by equipment category and the definitions move.

Write down what the programme deliberately is not doing. Exhaustive per-item searching at catalogue scale, design-arounds on parts that must match, and pursuit of the unresolved circuit split. A documented accepted limit is a governance decision; an undocumented one reads later as an oversight.

And name a successor for every standing obligation — the register, the exemption diary, the annual audit, and the demand letter file — because each outlives the person who set it up.

One organisational point that decides more than any of the above. In this field the useful position is upstream. For a manufacturer, that means being in the design review where the component claim, the design filing, and the authentication architecture are decided. For a supplier, it means the classification register that identifies which catalogue items carry the exposure before a letter does.

The reactive version of this practice is expensive and largely unnecessary, because the doctrine answered most of these questions decades ago and the two that remain open are answered by work done before the part is made.

Which is a shift most intellectual property practices in this sector have not yet made, and the one worth making first.

Everything else in this toolkit is downstream of that one decision about where counsel sits.

A Suggested Reading Path

Start with the doctrine in The Part That Broke.

Then the analysis in Building or Defending an Aftermarket Position.

Then the audit in the aftermarket and repair checklist.

For the circumvention layer, The DMCA's Other Half, Navigating Section 1201, and the Anticircumvention and Repair Toolkit.

For exhaustion, The Sale That Ends Your Rights and the Exhaustion and Gray Market Toolkit.

For the design layer, the Design Patent Toolkit and the design patent checklist.

For information provenance, Taking It Apart and the interoperability checklist.

And for the antitrust boundary, the IP and Antitrust Toolkit.

Primary Authorities

| Authority | Proposition | |---|---| | 35 U.S.C. § 103 | Obviousness | | 35 U.S.C. § 154 | Rights conferred | | 35 U.S.C. § 171 | Design patents | | 35 U.S.C. § 271 | Infringement; contributory; staple articles | | 35 U.S.C. § 289 | Total profits remedy | | 17 U.S.C. § 109 | First sale | | 17 U.S.C. § 117 | Maintenance and repair copies | | 17 U.S.C. § 1201 | Circumvention; exemptions; interoperability | | 17 U.S.C. § 1203 | Civil remedies for circumvention | | 15 U.S.C. § 1125 | False designation; trade dress | | 15 U.S.C. § 2302 | Warranty anti-tying provision | | Aro Manufacturing v. Convertible Top Replacement | Permissible repair | | Wilbur-Ellis v. Kuther | Repair and adaptation | | Jazz Photo v. International Trade Commission | Refurbishment as repair | | Impression Products v. Lexmark International | Exhaustion on sale; international | | Quanta Computer v. LG Electronics | Exhaustion by authorised sale | | Bowman v. Monsanto | No making of new articles | | Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons | Copyright international exhaustion | | Champion Spark Plug v. Sanders | Reconditioned goods; disclosure | | Prestonettes v. Coty | Truthful use of a mark | | Eastman Kodak v. Image Technical Services | Aftermarket monopolisation | | Verizon Communications v. Trinko | Refusal to deal limits | | Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink | No presumed market power | | LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Technology Operations | Design patent obviousness | | Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa | Ordinary observer test | | Chamberlain Group v. Skylink Technologies | Circumvention nexus | | MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment | 1201(a) distinct from copyright | | Sega Enterprises v. Accolade | Reverse engineering as fair use | | Right to repair statutes | State repair legislation | | Section 1201 repair exemptions | Triennial repair exemptions |

Forms and Templates

The License Agreement Template supplies the structure for an authorised parts or service agreement, which is the manufacturer-side instrument this field runs on, and its most consequential provisions are the ones a court will later read against 15 U.S.C. § 2302(c) and against the Kodak analysis rather than the royalty terms. On the supplier side the essential documents are shorter: a part classification register recording category, patent search result, design patent position, and authentication requirement per catalogue item; documented acquisition records for every unit examined; a fixed listing template satisfying nominative use across the whole catalogue; a two-line circumvention log per authenticated part; and a demand letter runbook implementing the seven-assertion triage.

Related Toolkits and Checklists

The Anticircumvention and Repair Toolkit carries the 17 U.S.C. § 1201 analysis that decides the commercial outcome. The Exhaustion and Gray Market Toolkit covers first sale and material differences. The Design Patent Toolkit covers the manufacturer's strongest tool and the supplier's largest exposure. The IP and Antitrust Toolkit covers the aftermarket monopolisation and refusal-to-deal analysis, and the Medical Device and Diagnostics IP Toolkit applies the same framework in the sector where the safety overlay is most contested.