## Facts

- Celgard, LLC, a North Carolina company, owned U.S. Patent No. 6,432,586 covering lithium-ion battery separator technology using a ceramic composite coating to reduce electrical shorting.
- SK Innovation Co., Ltd. (SKI), a Korean company headquartered in Seoul, designed, manufactured, and sold separators primarily from Korea and supplied them mainly to third-party manufacturers.
- Celgard sued SKI for patent infringement in the Western District of North Carolina.
- To establish specific personal jurisdiction, Celgard alleged SKI purposefully directed activities to North Carolina through sales or offers for sale of accused separators and invoked a stream-of-commerce theory.
- Celgard relied on an inferential chain involving SKI’s sales of separators to a battery maker, alleged incorporation into batteries used by an automaker, and North Carolina advertisements for an electric vehicle purportedly using those batteries.
- Celgard also asserted SKI separators entered North Carolina embedded in consumer electronics sold there, but did not provide evidence that accused separators were present in the state.
- SKI moved to dismiss, asserting no direct sales, offers for sale, or targeted distribution into North Carolina.
- The district court dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction; Celgard appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether SKI purposefully directed activities at North Carolina through sales or offers to sell the accused separators (or products containing them) sufficient for specific personal jurisdiction.
2. Whether specific personal jurisdiction could be based on a stream-of-commerce theory where the accused components allegedly reached North Carolina through downstream products.
3. Whether Celgard made a prima facie showing of minimum contacts consistent with due process.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit affirmed dismissal for lack of specific personal jurisdiction.
- The court held Celgard failed to show SKI purposefully directed sales or offers for sale into North Carolina.
- The court rejected stream-of-commerce jurisdiction because Celgard offered no competent evidence that the accused separators were actually present in North Carolina through downstream products.
- The court concluded Celgard did not meet its burden to establish a prima facie case of jurisdictional facts at the motion-to-dismiss stage.

## Legal Principles

- In patent cases, Federal Circuit law governs personal jurisdiction, applying a due process minimum-contacts analysis when the forum long-arm statute is coextensive with due process.
- Specific jurisdiction requires: (1) purposeful direction (or purposeful availment) toward the forum, (2) claims arising out of or relating to those forum-directed activities, and (3) reasonableness and fairness.
- Purposeful direction cannot rest on speculative, attenuated inferences about downstream sales; the plaintiff must present concrete facts showing the defendant’s forum-directed conduct.
- Stream-of-commerce allegations, without evidence tying the accused products to the forum and without additional defendant conduct indicating an intent to serve the forum market, are insufficient to establish purposeful availment.
- At the pleading and early motion stage, the plaintiff must make a prima facie showing of jurisdictional facts with competent evidence, not conclusory assertions.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit held that a foreign component supplier was not subject to specific personal jurisdiction in North Carolina where the plaintiff’s evidence of forum contacts depended on speculative downstream inferences and lacked proof that accused products entered the forum through conduct showing SKI’s intent to serve the North Carolina market.


Celgard, LLC v. SK Innovation Co., 792 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2015)