Arminak and Associates, Inc. v. Saint-Gobain Calmar, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
501 F.3d 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2007)
Relevant factsFree
Calmar (defendant) held design patents on a trigger-sprayer "shroud" sold only to industrial product manufacturers, not directly to retail customers; Arminak (plaintiff) sought a declaratory judgment that its competing shroud didn't infringe, and Calmar's own expert conceded industrial buyers could tell the two shrouds apart, though Calmar argued the relevant observer should instead be an undiscerning retail consumer.
IssueFree
Whether, in a design patent-infringement analysis, a hypothetical person can be an ordinary observer if the person cannot make a reasonably discerning decision regarding the similarity of the designs at issue.