The Federal Circuit has instructed that a design patent’s claim is often better represented by illustrations than a written claim construction. Sport Dimension, Inc. v. Coleman Co., 820 F.3d 1316, 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (citing Egyptian Goddess, 543 F.3d at 679 ). Consequently, the preferable course for a district court ordinarily will be not to attempt to “construe” a design patent by providing a detailed verbal description of the claimed design. Defendant rejoins that a verbal construction of claims explicitly excluding functional elements, as it has proposed, is more appropriate.
The question in this case, therefore, is primarily the “level of detail” to be used in describing the claimed design, i.e. whether the Court should advert to the illustrations in the design patent or undertake an element-by-element description thereof. Resting on Reddy and DePaoli, plaintiff requests that the Court reject defendant’s proposed construction and reserve any issues of functionality for a later time. Lu brings suit for two counts of patent infringement of United States patents numbers US D529,842 S (“the ’842 patent”) and US D556,642 S (“the ’642 patent”), each of which relates to the ornamental design of a bicycle. Plaintiff seeks judgment that has infringed the two patents in violation of 35 U.S.C. § 271, damages to compensate plaintiff for the infringement, trebled under 35 U.S.C. § 284 due to the willfulness of the alleged infringement and attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. “Park Tool has been manufacturing bicycle specific tools since 1963. Based out of St. Paul Minnesota, we are the world’s largest bicycle tool manufacturer. A long-term dedication to quality, innovation, and customer service has made Park Tool the first choice of professional and home bicycle mechanics around the world.” Feel the racing passion of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cups with the new Barzo and Mezcal UCI-licensed editions, the new tire options dedicated to all sports & leisure cross-country mountain bikers.
Because the proverbial picture is worth one thousand words, the Court attaches a demonstrative example of each claimed design. In analyzing a patent infringement action, the Court must 1) determine the meaning and scope of the hyper bicycles patent claims asserted to be infringed and 2) compare the properly construed claims to the infringing device. Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 976 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (en banc), aff’d, 517 U.S. 370, 116 S.Ct.
Robinson officially retired from competitive BMX racing after the 2016 USA BMX Grand Nationals. He is still very active in the sport, promoting BMX racing, coaching, and developing grassroots BMX leagues. ¥This race is a tribute to the memory of the late Mario Soto held every year in his home town of Bogotá, Colombia, and is called International BMX Championships “Summer Festival”. It is a professionals-only invitational race in which top pros are invited to participate.
Although cosmetically things will change, a lot of the underpinnings of the motorbike will either be the same, similar, or have seen a steady refinement over the years. Designing, testing, and refining these new products takes a considerable amount of research and development, which all costs money. The Court adopts this construction without prejudice to its ultimate jury instruction on functional versus ornamental elements or any other related factors.
This is a great way to keep costs down as you only need to be able to manufacture one product over and over again. If you take the very best stock motorbikes built for track days and racing, these are going to put the price up towards the £/$/€30,000 mark. However, this is still a step below the bikes used by the professional riders. A MotoGP bike is a bespoke bit of kit, not something that you can just go and buy, and even if you could they have a price tag well north of £/$/€1.5 million. The parties disagree as to whether the Court should provide a verbal construction of the claimed design at all, or should instead advert to the pictorial representation thereof as shown in figures one through seven of each patent.
When considering complaint information, please take into account the company’s size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm’s responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints. “CatEye is the leading manufacturer of cycle computers, lights and reflectors to cyclists in the world. Founded in 1954 in Osaka, Japan, CatEye has always been a leader in innovation and technology.”