Media Coverage
Source: Law360, Bloomberg
Media Coverage
Press Contacts: Erik Cummins, Matt Hyams, Taina Rosa, Olivia Thomas
05.10.24
On May 8, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission which found that Zircon Corp., did not meet the domestic industry requirement for filing a patent suit against Pillsbury client Stanley Black & Decker.
The precedential decision in Zircon Corp. v. International Trade Commission noted that it was Zircon’s burden to prove that it had a domestic industry of stud finder products protected by each of its patents. Those products "typically must relate to articles that are all protected by a particular patent, not to a group of articles variously protected by different patents,” the court ruled. The ITC, it added, "did not err in finding that Zircon failed to meet that burden when it relied on aggregated evidence of its investments in all domestic industry products without allocating those investments among products or product groups relating to each asserted patent, or product groups relating to all the asserted patents.”
In response to the decision, Pillsbury Intellectual Property partner Bryan Collins told Law360 that "We are very pleased with the thoughtful attention the Court of Appeals gave to our client's position in this matter."
In addition to Collins, the Pillsbury team for Stanley Black & Decker included Jack Barufka and Theresa Roozen.
Click here to read more about the decision.