Posts Tagged: "garage door openers"

On Thursday, December 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. v. International Trade Commission in which the appellate court reversed a final determination from the International Trade Commission (ITC) that garage door opener products sold by Techtronic violated a patent owned by The Chamberlain Group. The Federal Circuit found that the ITC erred in its construction of a claim term during its Section 337 investigation of Techtronic. This appeal stems back to a final determination issued by the ITC in March 2018  where the agency found that Techtronic infringed upon multiple claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,161,319, Movable Barrier Operator Having Serial Data Communication. It covers an improved garage door opener having a motor drive unit and a wall console for closing and opening a door. Both the motor drive unit and the wall console have microcontrollers that are connected via a digital data bus. The invention makes use of passive infrared detectors to detect heat from humans in the vicinity to determine when to illuminate the wall console for better sight of the garage door switches.