Univis, the owner of various method and product patents on optical lenses, manufactured lens blanks and sold them to licensees.

He has thus parted with his right to assert the patent monopoly with respect to it and is no longer free to control the price at which it may be sold either in its unfinished or finished form.

Since Univis's ownership of the patents did not shield its restrictions over post-sale conduct, the ordinary rules of law applied, under which price fixing is illegal.

Finally, the Court declined to try to separate (and preserve) the beneficial or pro-competitive features of the licensing system from the illegal ones.

The exhaustion doctrine as restated in the Univis decision has remained a governing principle of United States patent and antitrust law.