Arminak And Associates, Inc. v. Saint-Gobain Calmar, Inc.

501 F.3d 1314 (2007)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P and D are both in the business of selling trigger sprayers. In 1997, PTO granted D two design patents--the '581 and '602 patents--on two trigger sprayer shroud designs. D produced a commercial embodiment of the '581 patent called the 'ERGO' shroud. No commercial embodiment of the shroud design set forth in the '602 patent has been produced. In 2004, P began selling its 'AA Trigger' sprayer with the accused shroud design. D informed one of P's customers that D believed P's AA Trigger sprayer infringed D's '581 and '602 design patents. P filed a declaratory judgment action against D seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement. D counterclaimed, alleging infringement. P filed an amended complaint adding allegations of patent invalidity. P moved for summary judgment on its declaratory judgment claim. The district court determined that the shroud of P's AA Trigger does not infringe D's '581 and '602 design patents. The district court found that the ordinary observer of the trigger sprayer shroud designs in question was not the retail consumer or purchaser of retail products sold in containers with trigger sprayer devices, but the buyer of trigger sprayers for a contract filler or an industrial purchaser up the stream of commerce from the retail purchaser. D conceded that the industrial companies that buy the shrouds would be able to tell the difference. The court granted the summary judgment and D appealed. D claims the district court (1) erred by construing the claims of D's patents too narrowly; (2) erred in its identification of the industrial buyer, not the retail consumer, as the ordinary observer; (3) in holding that no reasonable jury could find that the ordinary observer would be deceived by the similarities of the trigger sprayers' shroud designs in question; (4) in holding that no reasonable jury could find the points of novelty of the patented designs to be present in P's AA Trigger shroud's design.