17 U.S.C. § 905
Section 905 · Exclusive rights in mask works
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 2 court decisions — leading case Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2013)
Most recently applied in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (March 2013)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The owner of a mask work provided protection under this chapter has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the mask work by optical, electronic, or any other means;
(2) to import or distribute a semiconductor chip product in which the mask work is embodied; and
(3) to induce or knowingly to cause another person to do any of the acts described in paragraphs (1) and (2).