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Lanard Toys Limited v. Dolgencorp LLC

958 F.3d 1337 (2020)

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Lanard Toys Limited v. Dolgencorp LLC

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
958 F.3d 1337 (2020)

RW

Facts

Lanard Toys Limited (Lanard) (plaintiff) patented and copyrighted its design for a child’s chalk pencil. Dolgencorp LLC (defendant) distributed the pencil for retail sale by Toys “R” Us-Delaware, Inc. (TRU) (defendant). After Ja-Ru, Inc. (defendant) began making a similarly designed pencil, Dolgencorp and TRU dropped Lanard’s product and began ordering Ja-Ru’s product instead. Lanard sued Dolgencorp, TRU, and Ja-Ru in federal district court for design-patent infringement, among other claims. By examining drawings that accompanied Lanard’s patent application, the court was able to distinguish patentable, ornamental elements in the Lanard pencil’s design from nonpatentable, purely functional elements devoid of any ornamentation, and from nonpatentable design elements derived from prior art. The court then conducted a side-by-side comparison of the Lanard and Ja-Ru pencils to look for overall similarities in their design. The court concluded that the two pencils’ designs were so dissimilar that no ordinary observer could mistake Ja-Ru’s pencil for Lanard’s pencil. The court dismissed the case. Lanard appealed to the Federal Circuit, which conducted a de novo review of the trial record.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Lourie, J.)

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