The appeals court acknowledged that the general rule is that buyers of patented products can do with them what they wish. But it said the conditions Lexmark placed on the sale of its cartridges could be enforced as a matter of patent law.

The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, saying that ruling was mistake.

“For more than 150 years, this court has held that, once a particular patented article has been sold in the United States by the patentee or with his authorization, the patent laws do not constrain the subsequent use or resale of that article,” the administration’s brief said.

The appeals court also ruled on foreign sales, saying that patent holders could control what was done with their products after they were sold abroad and re-imported by buyers like Impression Products. That ruling may be in tension with a 2013 Supreme Court decision in a copyright case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that it was lawful to import and resell textbooks that were first sold abroad.

Advocacy groups including Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a brief supporting Impression Products, saying Lexmark’s approach was part of a disquieting trend.

“Product manufacturers have routinely attempted to expand their rights under intellectual property law to restrict the spread of information about their products and to prevent customers from using their devices in new and useful ways,” the brief said. “The court should ensure that patent law does not provide a road map to legitimize such practices.”