The petitioner Maersk Drilling apparently entered into a contract with another company to provide oil drilling services in U.S. waters. Because there was some uncertainty whether Transocean's patents were invalid, Maersk reserved the right in the contract to provide a non-infringing equipment. The contract was negotiated and executed entirely in Europe. The district court initially granted summary judgment holding, not only that the patents in suit were invalid, but also that there could be no infringement since there was no offer to sell an infringing product in the United States. Maersk had only offered to sell services, and this offer had occurred entirely overseas.