"The case was complicated by inventorship disputes involving LaErik Cooper, a mechanical engineer who assisted in developing the design but was not named as an inventor on the patent. A jury ultimately found that Cooper was not entitled to co-inventor status, that Sherman willfully infringed the valid patent through its competing "TOL4" product line, and awarded Dynamite $1,850,000 in lost profits damages. The district court then awarded $1.54 million in attorney fees, bringing the total judgment to over $3.5 million."
"On appeal, the Federal Circuit dismissed Sherman's challenge to the inventorship determination because Sherman lacked standing to appeal that issue, since it was not a party to Cooper's inventorship counterclaim and Cooper himself did not appeal his loss. The court affirmed all other aspects of the district court's decision -- including a non-obviousness finding that survived even after the Federal Circuit's intervening LKQ decision changed the legal standard for design patent obviousness."
Dynamite Marketing owned U.S. Design Patent No. D751,877 covering the Wallet Ninja, a credit-card-sized multi-tool. Dynamite sued Sherman Specialty (d/b/a The WowLine) for design patent infringement. Inventorship disputes involved LaErik Cooper, a mechanical engineer who aided design development but was not named as an inventor. A jury found Cooper was not a co-inventor, found Sherman willfully infringed with its TOL4 products, and awarded $1,850,000 in lost profits. The district court added $1.54 million in attorney fees, yielding a judgment exceeding $3.5M. On appeal, the Federal Circuit dismissed Sherman's inventorship challenge for lack of standing and affirmed all other rulings, including a non-obviousness finding that survived a changed legal standard.
Read at Patently-O
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