simplehuman, LLC v. iTouchless Housewares and Products, Inc.
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:19-cv-02701
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 22
In simplehuman v. iTouchless, Judge Gilliam construed disputed patent terms, ruling the design lines were ornamental and adopting plain meanings for utility-patent terms.
simplehuman, LLC and iTouchless Housewares and Products, Inc.; the adopted definitions will govern the parties’ patent-infringement dispute.
What happened
simplehuman, LLC sued iTouchless Housewares and Products, Inc., alleging infringement of three patents covering trash-can designs and features. The parties asked the court to decide what several patent terms mean.
The court ruled that disputed lines in the design patents represent ornamental features, such as seams or paint, rather than shading or contour lines. For several terms in the utility patent, the court adopted their ordinary meanings and rejected arguments that the terms were unclear or lacked adequate written support. For “link assembly,” the court applied the patent-law rule limiting the term to the specific components shown in the patent and equivalent components.
The court adopted all of these constructions and scheduled another case-management conference. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. issued the claim-construction order.
The detailed version
- simplehuman, LLC v. iTouchless Housewares and Products, Inc. · No. 4:19-cv-02701
- Haywood Gilliam
- Dec. 14, 2020
Background
simplehuman, LLC brought a patent-infringement action against iTouchless Housewares and Products, Inc. The asserted patents were design patent Nos. D644,807 and D729,485, and utility patent No. 6,626,316. The court addressed the parties’ disputes over the meaning and scope of several claim terms.
Design-patent terms
The parties disputed whether certain lines shown in the D644,807 and D729,485 design-patent drawings were contour or shading lines, as simplehuman argued, or seams, as iTouchless argued. The court examined the patent figures, the written patent descriptions, the prosecution history, and evidence outside the patents.
The court concluded that the lines appear in views where they could not represent shading or contour. The court also found that the lines were absent from some locations with similar contours and that using undifferentiated straight lines would make it impossible to distinguish contour changes from ornamental features. The prosecution history did not change that conclusion because the patent examiner had removed a photograph from the application on procedural grounds, citing the risk that it would contradict the drawings. The court therefore adopted iTouchless’s proposed construction and treated the disputed lines as actual ornamental lines, such as seams or paint, rather than shading or contour lines.
Utility-patent terms
The ’316 Patent concerns a trash-can assembly with, among other features, a recessed foot pedal, a mechanism for lifting the liner, and an air freshener attached to the inside of the lid. The court resolved the following disputes:
- “The enclosing wall having a recess at its bottom end”: The court held that this term is not indefinite, meaning it informs skilled readers with reasonable certainty about the invention’s scope. The court also held that iTouchless had not shown that the term lacked written description, which requires the patent disclosure to reasonably show that the inventor possessed the claimed subject matter. The court adopted the term’s plain and ordinary meaning and accepted that the recess is an indentation in the enclosing wall. - “Curved recess panel”: The court found that no special construction was necessary. It rejected iTouchless’s proposed requirement that the panel have one continuous curve across its entire surface. The court clarified that multiple curves may form a curved recess panel. - “Foot pedal partially positioned in the recess panel”: The court held that this term is not indefinite and had not been shown at this stage to lack written description. It adopted the plain and ordinary meaning, including the parties’ agreement that “in” means “within the limits of.” - “Positioned inside the periphery of the shell”: The court rejected iTouchless’s argument that the foot-pedal portion had to be inside the shell’s interior or inside the metal enclosing wall. The court adopted the plain and ordinary meaning, holding that the pedal need only be within the periphery defined by the enclosing wall.
“Link assembly”
The parties agreed that “link assembly” is a means-plus-function term under 35 U.S.C. § 112(6). That rule allows a patent to describe an element by the function it performs, but limits the claim to the corresponding structure disclosed in the patent and its equivalents.
The court identified the function as coupling the foot pedal and the lid. It held that the corresponding structure is the link assembly shown in Figures 6A and 6B, including horizontal rod 64, vertical rod 76, L-shaped terminal ends 78 and 82, plastic hinge 84, lower end 86, upper end 88, and block 90, along with equivalents. The court declined to include additional supporting components because the patent did not describe them as performing the coupling function or as part of the link assembly.
Disposition
The court adopted the stated claim constructions. It also set a further case-management conference for January 5, 2021, and ordered the parties to submit a joint case-management statement proposing a schedule for the remainder of the case, including trial, by December 22, 2020. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. signed the order.
Read the full 22-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.