Posts Tagged: "design patents"

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Lanard Toys Limited v. Dolgencorp LLC, Ja-Ru, Inc., Toys “R” Us-Delaware, Inc. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Dolgencorp LLC, Ja-Ru, Inc., Toys “R” Us-Delaware, Inc. (the Appellees) on Lanard’s claims of design patent infringement, copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and statutory and common law unfair competition. The CAFC, in an opinion authored by Judge Lourie, affirmed on all four claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision of the District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia finding that GMS Mine Repair and Maintenance, Inc. (GMS) infringed Hafco Foundry and Machine Company, Inc.’s (Hafco) design patent, U.S. Design Patent No. D681,684 (the ’684 patent), directed to a rock dust blower for distributing rock dust in areas such as coal mines.  The CAFC also affirmed the district court’s denial of GMS’ request for a new trial due to errors in the jury instructions. Judge Newman concurred with the majority’s decision but wrote separately to note that she would have resolved the matter of damages by accepting Hafco’s proposed remitter of $110,000, which was the total of Hafco’s lost profits.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments over copyright status of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated; the Federal Circuit remands Ericsson appeal to calculate release payment in patent license; Apple, Ford and others urge the USPTO to retain policy against injunctions on companies practicing SEPs; Huawei asks the Fifth Circuit to undo the FCC’s ban preventing it from supplying U.S. networks; Sergey Brin and Larry Page relinquish executive duties at Google; U.S. antitrust regulators explore Amazon’s cloud business; Washington politicians send letter to ALI over Copyright Restatement Effort concerns; and Qualcomm challenges Judge Koh’s class action certification at the Ninth Circuit.

Yesterday, the Counterfeit Goods Seizure Act of 2019 was introduced in the U.S. Senate to empower U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enforce U.S. design patents at the U.S. border. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI). Currently, Section 1595a(c)(2)(C) of Title 19 of the U.S. Code empowers Customs to enforce copyrights and trademarks that have been previously recorded with Customs. The bill proposes amending 19 U.S.C. § 1595a(c)(2)(C) to give Customs similar discretionary power to seize and detain imported goods that infringe a recorded U.S. design patent. The bill is publicly supported by Nike Inc. and the 3M Company, as well as the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and the American Intellectual Property Owners Association (AIPLA).

As one of about 46,000 registered practitioners in the United States, most of us are unfortunately too well acquainted with Section 101, 102, and 103 rejections from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). But it may be surprising that most rejected design patent applications are not rejected under these sections. Instead, the least favorite number of the design patent practitioner is 112. While Section 112 rejections on utility applications are generally easily overcome, that is often not always the case with such rejections on design applications. Since there are only about 30,000 design applications issued each year, each of the 46,000 registered practitioners handle on average less than one design application per year! So, for those unfamiliar with the quirks of design patent practice, which is most of us, and since design patent applications have a relatively high allowance rate of 84% (see the USPTO Data Visualization Center/Design Data page, it might be tempting to rely on your patent draftsperson to prepare what they think are adequate drawings, copy the mostly boiler-plate specification language, and just file the application. But that can be a costly mistake.

The Federal Circuit recently held in Campbell Soup Company v. Gamon Plus, Inc. (September 26, 2019) that a prior art reference lacking one of only two features shown in solid line was similar enough to the claimed design to constitute a proper primary reference. Campbell Soup et al. appealed the final written decisions of the PTAB holding that they had not demonstrated that the claimed designs of U.S. Patent Nos USD612646 Gamon and USD621645 Gamon were obvious over the asserted prior art of U.S. Patent No. D405622 (USD405622 Linz) and GB Patent Application No. 2,303,624 (Samways GB2303624A). In their holding, the Board found that neither Linz nor Samways constituted proper primary prior art references. The Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part and remanded.

Despite the April 2011 priority date asserted for the ‘031 design patent, the PTAB found in its institution decision that the ‘031 patent wasn’t entitled to the priority date for the patent application resulting in the ‘838 patent because of a lack of written description support for the design claimed in the ‘031 patent… C&D Zodiac had provided evidence from a slide-show presentation shown at a B/E Aerospace Investor Day event in March 2012 which included slides (see left) depicting the Spacewall technology covered by the ‘031 patent as well as commercial success including an $800 million contract with Boeing signed in 2011.

Intellectual property probably isn’t high on the to-do list for most new nonprofits and business start-ups. There’s plenty enough to do with setting up an organization, paying bills, and serving customers and clients. However, intellectual property is important and shouldn’t be overlooked. Companies and organizations that don’t protect their IP can risk losing hard-earned work and concepts. Also, companies can risk liability if they violate the IP rights of others, even unknowingly or by accident. Patents provide inventors the right to exclude others from using the technologies covered by the patent for a limited time.  In exchange for exclusivity, inventors must disclose how to make and use the invention.  An inventor can apply for a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), as well as other intellectual property offices around the world.

Ultimately, the jury’s large damage award might not be the lasting storyline of this case. Apple’s “victory” here shows that well-crafted design patents can offer broad protections against even slight infringements by competitors, and that a well-written design patent and a well-argued case can provide tremendous benefits to the patent owners. Given the relatively inexpensive design patent process and what will only be continued speculation as to how these damages should be calculated, a design patent remains a great defense in the face of even limited infringement by market competitors.

On April 30th, alternative fuel vehicle manufacturer Nikola Corporation filed a complaint alleging claims of design patent infringement against electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc. Filed in the District of Arizona, Nikola’s complaint accuses Tesla of copying various elements of design patents held by Nikola in the area of heavy duty semi truck cabin design.

On May 14th the next chapter in the Samsung v. Apple smartphone design patent dispute will commence in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California with a retrial to determine a new award in the case. The most notable moment in this long winding history was the unanimous Supreme Court decision where the Supreme Court sided with Samsung in its appeal in late 2016. But while the Supreme Court’s ruling should have modernized our antiquated law governing design patents to fit into the modern 21st century world, that important outcome is still in doubt pending the retrial. A key question remains – namely, how to determine the “article of manufacture” and appropriate remedy for infringement of multifaceted products. And could this open up potential grounds of consideration for utility patent interpretation?

The first design patent case to go to trial since Apple v. Samsung has given design patent owners hope that a ‘total profit’ award is still achievable… Patent owners are keeping a close eye on how juries respond to the new legal framework, and will be carefully attuned to appeals from these cases as the Federal Circuit addresses the standards that apply to design patent damages cases going forward. If patent owners continue to get total profits for design patent infringement, even after Samsung v. Apple, companies are likely to increase their efforts in obtaining design patents, particularly given the current climate facing utility patents.