Rotec Industries, Inc. v. Mitsubishi Corporation, Tucker Associates, Inc. And Garry Tucker, and Mitsubishi International Corporation , 215 F.3d 1246 ( 2000 )

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge GAJARSA. Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit Judge PAULINE NEWMAN.

GAJARSA, Circuit Judge.

DECISION

Rotee Industries, Inc. (“Rotee”) appeals the December 14, 1998 order of the United States District Court for Central District of Illinois granting summary judgment to Mitsubishi Corporation, Tucker Associates, Inc., Garry Tucker and Mitsubishi International Corporation on Rotec’s claims of infringement of United States Patent No. 4,170,291 (the “ ’291 patent”). See Rotec Indus., Inc. v. Mitsubishi Corp., 36 F.Supp.2d 810 (C.D.Ill.1998). Because we find that the district court did not err in its determinations, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Rotee is a manufacturer of crane and conveyor systems designed to carry concrete over long distances. These systems are useful in large construction projects, such as the construction of river dams. Rotee is the assignee of record of the ’291 patent. The ’291 patent discloses a tower crane supported articulated concrete conveyor belt system. Rotee sells a system disclosed by the ’291 patent under the trade name “Tower Belt.”

On August 9, 1995, the government of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) solicited bid proposals for five units of a concrete placing system to be used in the Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River. All proposals were required to meet the specifications set forth by the Chinese Three Gorges Dam Project Corporation (“TGDPC”). Defendants Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi International (collectively, “MC”) approached Defendant Potain, a French corporation, to propose that Potain become a partner with MC to submit a joint bid proposal. According to Defendants, Po-tain was working on the design of a conveyor system at that time jointly with C.S. Johnson (“Johnson”). As a result, Johnson was also invited to join in the proposal. Shortly thereafter, Johnson contacted Defendant Garry Tucker (“Tucker”) of Defendant Tucker Associates, Inc. (“TA”) for additional help in preparing the bid. Tucker agreed to serve as an independent contractor to perform the design work for the project, and attended a formal pre-qualifying bid conference that took place in the PRC in October of 1995.

On January 16, 1996 Potain and MC submitted their joint bid to the PRC to supply the equipment. The parties subsequently negotiated for nearly a year, and on December 16, 1996, Potain, MC and the TGDPC signed a purchase and sale agreement for two of the complete concrete placing systems requested. The terms of the agreement provided for two alternative arrangements. Under one alternative, Po-tain would design and manufacture the cranes used in the systems, and Johnson would design and manufacture the conveyors. Under the other alternative, Potain would provide all of the necessary components. Under either arrangement, MC would provide the financing.

According to Rotee, much of the activity that preceded the Potain/MC/TGDPC agreement took place in the United States. Specifically, it asserts, inter alia, that:

1. the offering parties met several times in the United States;

2. a delegation from China visited Johnson’s headquarters in Cham-paign, Illinois during the week of December 8,1996;

3. Tucker prepared pricing information and worked on finalizing design and financial aspects of the bid proposal at his offices in Oregon and at Johnson’s Champaign, Illinois headquarters;

4. Johnson provided relevant technical and financial documents to Potain to be used in the preparation of the project bid; and

5. the offer provided that non-staple components were to be made in the United States by a designated U.S. supplier.

On February 14, 1997 Rotee filed suit against MC, Tucker, TA, Potain and C.S. Johnson in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. The lower court exercised jurisdiction over the case under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1338(a) and 1367(a) (1994). In its Second Amended Complaint, Rotee alleged that Defendants infringed the ’291 patent by making an “offer for sale” of the invention claimed therein in the United States, in violation of 35 U.S.C. §§ 271(a) and 271(f) (1994). Ro-tee also alleged a civil conspiracy to commit patent infringement between and among Defendants and Johnson,¹ in violation of Illinois state law.

Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), Defendants moved to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint on two grounds. First, Defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim, arguing that Rotee could not prove that Defendants committed the alleged act of infringement — the offer to sell — within the United States. Second, Defendant Potain moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. After allowing limited discovery on these issues, the district court granted Potain’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and treated the remaining motions as motions for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56.

On December 14, 1998, the district court granted Defendants’ summary judgment motions after finding insufficient evidence of an offer for sale within the United States. The court held that there was no genuine dispute as to the following facts:

1. the agreement called for all of the conveyor components to be made in Japan and China, regardless of what may have been provided in earlier proposals;

2. no components were actually made in the United States;

3. the bid proposal, including the description of the product and the proposed price, was finalized in Hong Kong and presented in China;

4. all negotiations with the Chinese government prior to signing the agreement took place in China; and

5. the agreement was signed in China.

See id. at 815, 817. The court also held that Rotec’s evidence of a meeting between Johnson and a TGDPC delegate in the United States was incompetent hearsay. As a result, the court concluded, “Plaintiff cannot establish an essential element to its cause of action for patent infringement, an act of infringement in the United States.” Id. at 817 (citation omitted). Having dismissed Rotec’s federal law claims, the court then declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claim. See id. at 818. On January 12, 1999, the district court denied Rotec’s motion for reconsideration. See id. at 818-19. Rotee now appeals the district court’s judgment of non-infringement.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

As noted above, the district court, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), treated Defendants’ motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment. “Rule 12(b)(6) provides that if matters outside the complainant’s pleading are presented to the court the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment under Rule 56.” Advanced Cardiovascular Sys., Inc. v. Scimed Life Sys., Inc., 988 F.2d 1157, 1164, 26 USPQ2d 1038, 1044 (Fed.Cir.1993). Thus, we must treat Defendants’ motions as motions for summary judgment in reviewing the propriety of the district court’s order.

This court reviews all grants of summary judgment by a district court de novo. See Conroy v. Reebok Int’l, Ltd., 14 F.3d 1570, 1574, 29 USPQ2d 1373, 1376 (Fed.Cir.1994). Accordingly, the court must decide for itself “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). The moving party is entitled to summary judgment when the nonmoving party “fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the evidence of an element essential to that party’s case ... since a complete failure of proof concerning an essential element ... necessarily renders all other facts immaterial.” Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322-323, 106 S.Ct. 2548. In addition, “[w]hen the moving party has carried its burden under Rule 56(c), its opponent must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (footnote omitted).

B. Rotec’s § 271(a) Claim

Under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) (Supp.1997), “whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States” infringes the patent. According to Rotee, Defendants violated § 271(a) when they “offered to sell” the invention claimed in the ’291 patent to TGDPC. For the purposes of the motions now before this court, Defendants do not dispute that the ’291 patent claims the system they offered to sell to TGDPC. They do dispute, however, that they made any offer for sale to TGDPC in the United States. Defendants say their offer was made in China, not the United States, thereby absolving them of any § 271(a) liability.

There is no genuine dispute that at least some of Defendants’ activities before signing the agreement with TGDPC took place in the United States. At the same time, it is also undisputed that many of these activities took place outside the United States, in China and elsewhere. These extraterritorial activities however, are irrelevant to the case before us, because “[t]he right conferred by a patent under our law is confined to the United States and its territories, and infringement of this right cannot be predicated of acts wholly done in a foreign country.” Dowagiac Mfg. Co. v. Minnesota Moline Plow Co., 235 U.S. 641, 650, 35 S.Ct. 221, 59 L.Ed. 398 (1915) (citation omitted). Thus, we must establish whether Defendants’ activities in the United States, as would be construed by a reasonable jury, are sufficient to establish an “offer for sale,” as that phrase is used in § 271(a). If these activities are sufficient to establish an “offer for sale” as a matter of law, we must find that the district court erred in granting Defendants’ motions. If not, we must affirm.

1. Historical Background

The statutory history of § 271(a) may be divided into two distinct periods: before the GATT Uruguay Round Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (“TRIPS”) agreements, and after. Before the TRIPS agreements, § 271(a) granted the patent holder the right to exclude others only from “making, using or selling the patented invention throughout the United States.” This court had construed this grant strictly, so that “neither intent nor preparation [to sell] constituted infringement.” Laitram Corp. v. Cambridge Wire Cloth Co., 919 F.2d 1579, 1583, 16 USPQ2d 1929, 1932 (Fed.Cir.1990). In addition, a party could not be held liable for threatening infringement, contracting to make infringing devices, or even beginning construction of infringing devices. As we noted in Eli Lilly & Co. v. Medtronic, Inc., 915 F.2d 670, 673, 16 USPQ2d 2020, 2023 (Fed.Cir.1990), § 271(a) did not cover acts other than an actual making, using or selling of the patented invention in its completed form. Moreover, the Supreme Court held in Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U.S. 518, 527, 92 S.Ct. 1700, 32 L.Ed.2d 273 (1972), that § 271(a) excluded various activities prior to an actual sale. The Court found that “sales rhetoric and related indicia such as price” could not infringe a patent unless the patentee proved the defendant was “selling the patented invention.” Id.

In 1993, however, the United States completed negotiations on the TRIPS agreements. As a result of these negotiations, the United States agreed to amend its patent law to impose additional infringement liability for “offers to sell.” In 1994, Congress enacted a statute to satisfy the nation’s pledge under TRIPS. The statutory language of the amendment to § 271(a) provided that, after January 1, 1996, “whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States ... infringes the patent.” (emphasis added). Unfortunately, other than stating that an “offer to sell” includes only those offers “in which the sale will occur before the expiration of the term of the patent,” 35 U.S.C. § 271(i) (Supp.1997), Congress offered no other guidance as to the meaning of the phrase.

When the language of a statute fails to provide clear and unambiguous direction, we may turn to the statute’s legislative history. See Toibb v. Radloff, 501 U.S. 157, 162, 111 S.Ct. 2197, 115 L.Ed.2d 145 (1991) (“[W]e look first to the statutory language and then to the legislative history if the statutory language is unclear.”). In this case, however, the legislative history of the statute offers little additional insight. To be sure, the history confirms that Congress sought to strengthen the protections afforded under § 271. See General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade (GATT): Intellectual Property Provisions: Hearings on H.R. 1891 and S. 2868 Before the Subcomm. on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration of the House Judiciary Comm, and the Sub-comm. on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks of the Senate Judiciary Comm., 103rd Cong. 124 (1994) (statement of Bruce A. Lehman, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Comm’r of Patents and Trademarks) (stating that the amendments “add to the rights of the patent owner”). The question remains, however, as to how much strength Congress wished to add to the parameters of a patent grant.

In its briefs and oral argument, Rotee points to Johnson’s work in the United States as evidence of an offer to sell the claimed invention within the United States. The claimed invention was a tower crane supported articulated concrete conveyor belt system. As noted earlier, however, Johnson’s work on the project focused only on the conveyor components of the concrete delivery systems. Johnson did not work, for example, on the system’s crane components, which were designated to be supplied by Potain from either France or within China itself. Therefore, Johnson did not offer to sell the entire invention as claimed in the patent.

In Deepsouth, the Supreme Court considered the related question of whether “making” or “selling” less than the complete invention in the United States constitutes an act of infringement under § 271(a). The petitioner in Deepsouth made parts of various shrimp deveining machines covered by patents held by the respondent. These parts were manufactured in the United States. Instead of selling the machines fully assembled in the United States, however, the petitioner sold the parts to foreign buyers, who assembled the parts abroad. The respondent sued for infringement under § 271(a), claiming that the petitioner “made” and “sold” the inventions of the patents within the United States as those terms are used in the statute, because “the act of assembly ... is regarded ... as of no importance.” Deepsouth, 406 U.S. at 524, 92 S.Ct. 1700.

The Supreme Court disagreed. It held that in order to infringe under § 271(a), the accused device must include all of the limitations contained within the patent claim, not just any one limitation. See id. at 528, 92 S.Ct. 1700. “We cannot endorse the view that the ‘substantial manufacture of the constituent parts of (a) machine’ constitutes direct infringement [under § 271(a) ] when we have so often held that a combination patent protects only against the operable assembly of the whole and not the manufacture of its parts.” Id. We discern no reason to hold that an “offer to sell” under § 271(a) should be any different, particularly in the absence of any indication of Congress’s intent to do so.²

We must still decide, however, what constitutes an “offer,” as that term is used in § 271(a). As mentioned above, the amendment to §,271 (a) served to implement our nation’s commitments under the TRIPS agreements. Accordingly, we must recognize one of the agreements’ declared purposes: harmonizing worldwide patent law. See Lisa B. Martin & Susan L. Amster, International Intellectual Property Protections in the New GATT Accord, 2 J. Proprietary Rts. 9, 9 (1993). Before the TRIPS agreements, the United States stood apart from its trading partners in limiting infringement protection only to actual “sales,” as opposed to “offers for sale.” Indeed, our first draft proposal during the TRIPS negotiations reflected our unique approach in setting forth only “making, using or selling” patented inventions as acts of infringement. See U.S. Draft Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, Presented at GATT Uruguay Round Negotiations in Geneva May 14, 7 Int’l Trade Rep. (BNA) 708, 711 (May 16, 1990). Ultimately, however, the United States agreed to the broader protections provided by others, suggesting that the amendment to § 271(a) reflects the approaches of the other signatory nations.

In at least one such nation, the United Kingdom, the common law of contract does not limit the meaning of “offer for sale” in the context of patent infringement. In Gerber Garment Tech. Inc. v. Lectra Sys. Ltd., 13 R.P.C. 383, 411-12 (United Kingdom Patents Court 1995), the infringer argued that offers are defined by contract law and that “pre-contract negotiations or an advertisement” do not infringe. Id. The court disagreed, reasoning that the patent law did not merely codify the “English law of contract” but rather acted to prevent others from “disturbing the paten-tee’s monopoly.” Id. It then held that mere advertising activities could infringe, even if the activities do not meet the common law definition of offer. See id. The court reasoned that a patentee is harmed by an advertisement for a sale set to, take place during the term of the patent. Conversely, a defendant may not be held liable for advertisements of sales outside the patent term, because the offer exhibited an express intent to avoid interfering with the patentee’s conferred rights. See id.

Of course, we must ultimately decide this issue as a matter of United States law. ’ This court first considered the meaning of “offer for sale” in the context of § 271(a) in 3D Sys., Inc. v. Aarotech Labs., Inc., 160 F.3d 1373, 48 USPQ2d 1773 (Fed.Cir.1998). In that case, a patentee sued three defendants in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for infringement of a variety of patents. The patentee argued that the defendants were liable for “offering to sell” the inventions disclosed in the patents. The defendants moved to dismiss the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction, arguing that the plaintiff had failed to establish the elements for personal jurisdiction required by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s due process test. The district court agreed, granted the motion and dismissed all claims. See id. at 1376, 160 F.3d 1373, 48 USPQ2d at 1775.

On appeal, we reversed. The court found that the personal jurisdiction issue was governed by the law of the Federal Circuit, (not regional circuit law. It then applied the personal jurisdiction test set forth in Akro Corp. v. Luker, 45 F.3d 1541, 33 USPQ2d 1505 (Fed.Cir.1995), to the plaintiff’s allegation of specific personal jurisdiction over the defendants. After concluding that the defendants’ actions were purposefully directed at the residents of the forum state, thus satisfying the first prong of the test, the court considered the second prong: whether the claim arises out of or relates to those activities. Because the plaintiff claimed that the defendants “offered” its patented inventions for sale in violation of § 271(a), the court considered the meaning of this recently added term. See 3D Sys., 160 F.3d at 1377-1378, 48 USPQ2d at 1776-1777.

The defendants urged that California state law governed whether the defendants’ activities constituted an offer to sell. The court, however, disagreed. It first noted that “[l]ittle interpretation of this change as it relates to direct infringement under § 271(a) has been given, and no guidance on whether state law applies when determining if an ‘offer to sell’ has occurred.” Id. at 1378, 160 F.3d 1373, 48 USPQ2d at 1776. The court then observed that it had “rejected previous attempts to shape our personal jurisdiction law through state common law definitions of federal statutory terms as defendants suggest.” Id. at 1379, 160 F.3d 1373, 48 USPQ2d at 1777. As a result, the court held that “[t]he statutory character of the ‘offer to sell’ requires us to ‘look back to federal law on the conceptualization’ of the ‘offer to sell’ itself.” Id.; cf. North Am. Philips v. American Vending Sales, Inc., 35 F.3d 1576, 1579, 32 USPQ2d 1203, 1205 (Fed.Cir.1994) (holding that determination of where a sale took place “requires a look back to federal law”). Similarly, the court rejected the argument that it might look to “on-sale bar” analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). “We decline to import the authority construing the ‘on sale’ bar of § 102(b) into the ‘offer to sell’ provision of § 271(a).” 3D Sys., 160 F.3d at 1379 n. 4, 48 USPQ2d at 1777 n. 4 (citing Ferag AG v. Quipp Inc., 45 F.3d 1562, 1566, 33 USPQ2d 1512, 1515 (Fed.Cir.1995)).

The court then held that the defendants’ price quotation letters were in fact offers to sell, even though they purported not to be on their face. “[T]o treat them as anything other than offers to sell would be to exalt form over substance.” Id. at 1379, 48 USPQ2d at 1777. Accordingly, it found that “[a]s a matter of federal statutory construction, the price quotation letters can be regarded as ‘offerfs] to sell’ under § 271 based on the substance conveyed in the letters, i.e., a description of the allegedly infringing merchandise and the price at which it can be purchased.” Id.

We recognize that 3D Sys. was issued shortly after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Pfaff v. Wells Elecs. Inc., 525 U.S. 55, 119 S.Ct. 304, 142 L.Ed.2d 261 (1998); however, the analysis of an “offer to sell” under § 271(a) is consistent with the Court’s analysis in Pfaff of § 102(b).³ In Pfaff, the Supreme Court noted that the norms of traditional contract law should be the basis for the on-sale determinations under § 102(b). The Court specifically held that for the § 102(b) on-sale bar to apply, “the product must be the subject of a commercial offer for sale.” Id. at 67, 119 S.Ct. 304, 142 L.Ed.2d 261, 48 USPQ2d at 1646. This analysis is not divergent from our § 271(a) analysis, because an offer for sale, whether made before or after a patent is applied for, or after it is granted, requires no more than a commercial offer for sale. Both sections invoke the traditional contractual analysis. Therefore, we similarly define § 271(a)’s “offer to sell” liability according to the norms of traditional contractual analysis.

Our task here is similar to the task presented in Enercon v. ITC, 151 F.3d 1376, 47 USPQ2d 1725 (Fed.Cir.1998). In Enercon, we were required to set forth the meaning of the term “sale or importation” under § 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended. See id. at 1381, 151 F.3d. 1376, 47 USPQ2d at 1729. After noting that neither the Tariff Act itself nor its legislative history provided any definition of either “sale” or “importation,” we concluded that “Congress intended to give the term its ordinary meaning, thereby making an explicit definition unnecessary.” Id. The court then turned to traditional sources on the meaning of the term, including dictionaries and the Uniform Commercial Code. See id. In this case, Congress has again elected not to provide an explicit definition of the term at issue. As a result, we conclude that the meaning of “offer to sell” is to be interpreted according to its ordinary meaning in contract law, as revealed by traditional sources of authority.

Rotee argues that, as in 3D Sys., Defendants “generated] interest in a potential infringing product to the commercial detriment of the rightful patentee.” 3D Sys., 160 F.3d at 1379 n. 4, 48 USPQ2d at 1777 n. 4. According to Rotee, a reasonable jury could review the evidence at hand and find that Defendants made an infringing offer to TGDPC in the United States.

We find that the evidence supports precisely the opposite conclusion. First, Rotee points to evidence that: (1) the offering parties met nine times in the United States about supplying a conveyor system for the Three Gorges Dam Project; (2) Johnson and Tucker designed and priced the contemplated system in the United States; and (3) the written offer identified Johnson as the supplier for the concrete system, and confirmed that Johnson had provided all relevant technical and financial documents. None of this evidence, however, establishes any communication by Defendants with any third party. This directly contrasts with the facts in 3D Sys., in which the defendants’ infringing “offers for sale” consisted of “price quotation letters sent by [defendant] Aaroflex to California residents.” Id., 160 F.3d at 1379, 48 USPQ2d at 1777.

In the absence of a communication with a third party, it is difficult to imagine any commercial detriment of the rightful pat-entee taking place. If, however, the court were to adopt Rotec’s reasoning, it would effectively prohibit a patentee’s competitors from: (1) studying a patent in anticipation of its expiration; (2) estimating the cost of producing a disclosed invention before the date of expiration; or (3) reviewing a patent to ascertain whether the claims read on a product currently in development. After all, each of these activities could also lead to “generating interest ... to the commercial detriment of the rightful patentee.” 3D Sys., 160 F.3d at 1379 n. 4, 48 USPQ2d at 1777 n. 4. This interpretation goes far beyond the limited “right to exclude” provided under § 271(a). Furthermore, it ignores an object of the patent law as important as providing incentives to invent: disclosing new ideas to the public. See Paulik v. Rizkalla, 760 F.2d 1270, 1276, 226 USPQ 224, 228 (Fed.Cir.1985) (“[T]he grant of the right to exclude carries the obligation to disclose the workings of the invention, thereby adding to the store of knowledge without diminishing the patent-supported incentive to innovate.”).

Rotee also points to evidence that representatives of TGDPC traveled to the United States in December 1996, where according to Rotee they spent two or three days at C.S. Johnson’s headquarters in Champaign, Illinois conducting business relating to the Three Gorges Dam Project. This activity, says Rotee, took place only eight days before the contract .was signed in China. Rotec’s evidence of this alleged meeting consists of a declaration by Rotee President A. Stephen Ledger. In the declaration, Ledger asserts that a Johnson official told him about the meeting:

On Sunday, December 8, 1996, I met at A1 Seeland’s home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, with a delegation from CTGPC [the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corporation], including Mr. Zhou Yong Fu, who was responsible for working with Rotee and TGDPC’s contractor at Three Gorges Dam site on matters relating to the TowerBelt, Ro-tec’s patented tower crane-based concrete placement system. Prior to that meeting, Al Seeland informed [me] that the delegation had spent the preceding two or three days at C.S. Johnson’s headquarters in Champaign, Illinois conducting business relating to the Three Gorges Dam Project.

(emphasis added).

The district court found that the evidence was inadmissible hearsay:

Ledger does not claim to have personal knowledge that the meeting took place and does not claim to have any knowledge as to the matters discussed at the meeting. It is well settled that a party opposing a motion for summary judgment must rely on “competent evidence of a type otherwise admissible at trial.” Accordingly, “a party may not rely on inadmissible hearsay in an affidavit or deposition to oppose a motion for summary judgment.” Here, Ledger’s declaration is based upon hearsay and lacks the personal knowledge required to be admissible. As a result, Ledger’s declaration regarding Seeland’s statement is inadmissible hearsay and is “incompetent evidence to oppose summary judgment.”

Rotec Indus., Inc., 36 F.Supp.2d at 816 (citations omitted).

“We review evidentiary rulings under an abuse of discretion standard.” Munoz v. Strahm Farms, Inc., 69 F.3d 501, 503, 36 USPQ2d 1499, 1501 (Fed.Cir.1995) (citation omitted). Rotee argues that the statement was admissible as either a statement made in furtherance of a conspiracy, see Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E), or an admission of a party agent, see Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(D). Neither of these arguments has merit.

First, Rotee does not explain how the statement by Seeland “furthers” any alleged conspiracy. This is especially perplexing when, as in this case, the statement reveals purportedly truthful information to the alleged victim. If anything, Seeland’s statement put Rotee on notice of the alleged conspiracy. Cf. United States v. Mitchell, 31 F.3d 628, 632 (8th Cir.1994) (“A statement that simply informs a listener of the declar-ant’s criminal activities is not made in furtherance of the conspiracy; instead, the statement must ‘somehow advance the objectives of the conspiracy.’”).

Second, Rotee does not establish that Seeland was an agent of the defendant parties. Although “an agency relationship can be created by contract or conduct, not all contracts create agency relationships and not all conduct creates agency relationships.” Chemtool, Inc. v. Lubrication Technologies, Inc., 148 F.3d 742, 745 (7th Cir.1998). The court must decide “whether the alleged principal has the right to control the manner and method in which work is carried out by the alleged agent and whether the alleged agent can affect the legal relationships of the principal.” Id. Rotee offers no evidence that Seeland, or his employer Johnson, could affect the legal relationships of Defendants. Indeed, the Cooperation Agreement between Defendants and Johnson provides that “each party under this Agreement shall be responsible for its own Scope of Work.” Accordingly, it may not be said that the district court abused its discretion in excluding the statement from its consideration.

In its Reply Brief, Rotee also offers the deposition testimony of Seeland as evidence that an offer was extended to TGDPC within the United States.

Q. And did you think you were misrepresenting to the Chinese that the country of origin was the USA?

R. Absolutely not. They knew — the Chinese knew everything we were doing at all times. We had — we were — we had them here, I[sic] them in Chicago, all the people here.

This, too, is insufficient. On its face, the statement does not indicate when the meeting took place, or among whom. It does not discuss whether the invention was described, or at what price. All this statement shows is that Seeland, perhaps on behalf of his employer, met with the Chinese at some indefinite point in time, and that the Chinese knew everything about Seeland’s activities.⁴ It does not show that any Defendant communicated a “manifestation of willingness to enter into a bargain, so made as to justify another person in understanding that his assent to that bargain is invited and will conclude it.” Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 24 (1979).⁵ No reasonable jury could rely on this statement to find that an offer was extended within the United States. As a result, the district court did not err.

In sum, Rotee offers no evidence upon which a reasonable jury could find in its favor. Of the evidence to. which it points in support of its “offer to sell” theory, only the statement by Seeland involves a communication between Defendants and a third party potential customer. This statement, however, was properly excluded by the district court as inadmissible hearsay, and in any event was insufficient to establish that Defendants extended an offer for sale of the claimed invention within • the United States. As a result, there is no genuine dispute of any material fact on the issue of § 271(a) liability for an offer to sell, and Defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

C. Rotec’s § 271(f)(2) Claim

The district court also granted Defendants’ summary judgment motion on Rotec’s claim under § 271(f)(2). Under § 271(f)(2),

whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States any component of a patented invention that is especially made or especially adapted for use in the invention and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, where such component is uncombined in whole or part, knowing that such component is so made or adapted and intending that such component will be combined outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable for infringement.

35 U.S.C § 271(f)(2). On its face, § 271(f)(2) imposes liability only on those who “supply” or “cause ' to supply” any component of a patented invention. Rotee argues that the court must look past the section’s face and consider it in light of § 271(a), as amended. According to Ro-tee, § 271(f)(2) now imposes liability on those who “offer to supply” any component of a patented invention, because Congress “surely intended to strengthen the patent laws.” As a result, Rotee concludes that Defendants violated § 271(f) when they offered to supply the Johnson conveyor component, which was part of the patented system, from the United States.

This is incorrect. The court may not read an amendment to one section of a statute as an amendment to an entirely different section of the statute in the absence of any statutory justification. If Congress wanted to amend § 271(f)(2), as it amended § 271(a), it could have easily done so. There is no general reason, however, for the court to play the part of surrogate legislature. “[WJhen the legislature has clearly spoken the law, the court’s duty is to enforce it as written.” Telectronics Pacing Sys., Inc. v. Ventritex, Inc., 982 F.2d 1520, 1524, 25 USPQ2d 1196, 1199 (Fed.Cir.1992). The statute is clear on its face, and there is no legitimate reason to look any further. “A statute is by definition the law to be followed- — not disregarded, effectively repealed, rewritten or overruled (unless unconstitutional) — in the federal courts.” In re Mark Indus., 751 F.2d 1219, 1224 224 USPQ 521, 524 (Fed.Cir.1984). “This Court is empowered to rewrite neither statutes nor regulations, however unwise, nor does it have the information base nor expertise to do so effectively.” Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. Garrett, 6 F.3d 1547, 1558 (Fed.Cir.1993). The record contains no evidence that any Defendant “supplied or caused to supply” any component of a patented invention in or from the United States. Indeed, Rotee itself admits that all of the tower crane components were manufactured in either France or China and that the majority of conveyor components were manufactured in either China or Japan. Therefore, the district court correctly dismissed this claim.

CONCLUSION

The decision of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

COSTS

Each party to bear its own costs.

1 . Although named as a co-defendant in the original complaint, Johnson was not named in the Second Amended Complaint after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 1997.

2 . After the decision in Deepsouth, Congress accepted the Court’s invitation to provide "a clear and certain signal," 406 U.S. at 531, 92 S.Ct. 1700, by enacting 35 U.S.C. § 271(f), which precludes competitors from avoiding liability simply by supplying components of a patented product from the United States and assembling them abroad. See 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) (1994). § 271(f) does not, however, change the nature of § 271(a) liability, as it provides a separate cause of action. Hence, as to claims brought under § 271(a), Deep-south remains good law: one may not be held liable under § 271(a) for “making'' or “selling” less than a complete invention.

3 . Of course, the jurisprudence surrounding the on-sale bar of § 102(b) is premised on different policy reasons. As we noted in 3D Sys.:

[t]he policy reasons underlying the on-sale prohibition of § 102(b) include the concern that patentees will commercialize their inventions while deferring the beginning of the statutory patent term, encouraging prompt and widespread disclosure of inventions to the public, discouraging the removal of inventions from the public domain when the public has come to rely on their ready availability, and giving investors a reasonable period to discern the potential value of an invention.

Id. at 1379 n. 4, 160 F.3d 1373, 48 USPQ2d at 1777 n. 4. In contrast, the policy underlying the "offer to sell” liability under § 271(a) includes "preventing a competitor from generating interests in a potential infringing product to the commercial detriment of the rightful patentee.” Id.

4 . The court notes that Rotee could have asked Seeland about the details of the meeting during Seeland’s deposition. Whether Rotee did so, however, is not ascertainable from the record. In any event, we must review the district court's order in light of what is present in the record, regardless of what might have been presented.

5 . Although not authoritative, the Restatement has long been recognized as useful in establishing the general law governing the law of contracts, including offers. Cf. Enercon, 151 F.3d at 1382 (holding that the “U.C.C. has been recognized as the general law governing the sale of goods and is another useful, though not authoritative, source in determining the ordinary commercial meaning of the term ‘sale’ ”).