## Facts

- Glaverbel, S.A. and Fosbel, Inc. (collectively, Glaverbel-Fosbel) obtained patents abroad and in the United States covering their inventions.
- Northlake Marketing and Supply, Inc. sued in both Belgium and the United States seeking to have Glaverbel-Fosbel’s patents declared invalid.
- In the U.S. case, Northlake’s invalidity theory depended in part on characterizing a particular British document as a published description of relevant prior art (i.e., a “printed publication” for U.S. patent-law purposes).
- In the Belgian litigation, the Belgian court addressed whether that British document was publicly available and found that it was located in a private library, had not been made public, and therefore was not “published” under Belgian patent law.
- Relying on the Belgian court’s determination, Glaverbel-Fosbel moved in the U.S. district court to bar Northlake from advancing the contention that the British document was a published prior-art reference in the U.S. invalidity case.

## Issues

1. Whether the Belgian court’s determination that the British document was not publicly available (and thus not “published” under Belgian law) should be given preclusive effect in the U.S. action to prevent Northlake from treating the document as published prior art for its U.S. invalidity claims.

## Decision

- The court granted Glaverbel-Fosbel’s request to exclude Northlake’s reliance on the British document as a “published” prior-art reference in the U.S. litigation to the extent Northlake sought to relitigate the same public-availability question already decided in Belgium.
- The court reasoned that Northlake could not avoid the effect of the Belgian ruling by repackaging the same factual dispute (public accessibility of the document) in the U.S. case.
- The ruling narrowed Northlake’s invalidity presentation by removing a specific prior-art theory tied to the British document’s alleged publication status.

## Legal Principles

- U.S. courts may, as a matter of comity and preclusion doctrine, give effect to a foreign court’s final determination of an issue when the same parties previously litigated that issue and the determination was necessary to the foreign judgment.
- Issue preclusion can apply to a factual determination made in foreign litigation when the party to be bound had a fair opportunity to litigate the point and seeks a second chance on the same question in U.S. court.
- For patent invalidity based on a “printed publication,” a core factual question is whether the reference was publicly accessible; materials kept in a private location without public access generally do not qualify as “published” prior art.

## Conclusion

Northlake’s U.S. invalidity case depended in part on treating a British document as published prior art, but a Belgian court had already determined that the document was kept in a private library and not made public. Giving effect to that prior determination, the district court barred Northlake from relitigating the document’s publication/public-access status in the U.S. action, narrowing the invalidity issues accordingly.


Northlake Marketing and Supply, Inc. v. Glaverbel, S.A., 958 F. Supp. 373 (1997)