Captain Morgan sued for beverage packaging design infringement *

USA - May 31 2012
American Beverage Corp. (ABC) and Pouch Pac Innovations filed suit against Diageo and its subsidiary, the Captain Morgan Co., in the Western District of Pennsylvania alleging, inter alia, design patent infringement.

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The pre-critical date claims at issue in Thompson v. Hamilton *

USA - May 16 2012
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. v, Monsanto Technology LLC, 671 F.3d 1324, 1328, 101 USPQ2d 1849, 1852 (Fed. Cir. 2012)(opinion by Senior Circuit Judge Clevenger for a panel that also consisted of Circuit Judges Prost and Reyna)(hereinafter referred to as “Pioneer”), held that “multiple pre-critical date claims, considered together, can provide the foundation necessary for post-critical date claims to be held timely [under 35 USC 135(b)(1)].”

Co-authors: Charles L. Gholz.

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Dyson files suit to enforce design and utility patents for its bladeless fan *

USA - May 4 2012
Dyson, Inc. filed suit against Cornucopia Products in the District of Arizona to enforce design and utility patents directed to a bladeless fan.

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Digest of new and closed design patent cases from April 9-20, 2012 *

USA - April 24 2012
Wal-Mart and Oakley were among the parties to 8 newly-filed cases and 5 closed cases involving design patents during the two-week period of April 9-20, 2012.

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Digest of new and closed design patent cases from Mar. 19 to April 6, 2012 *

USA - April 11 2012
In light of the positive response we received from our earlier Design Patent Digest post, we decided to post another. 

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