Redesign Decisions: Federal Court Revisits School-related Design Patents

In 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) made significant strides in shaping the landscape of design patent law with its decisions on several notable cases. Among these were Lashify, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, In re Floyd, Top Brand v. Cozy Comfort Co. LLC, North Star Tech Int'l Ltd. v. Latham Pool Prods, and Dynamite Marketing, Inc. v. The WowLine, Inc.

One of the most impactful decisions came in North Star Tech Int'l Ltd. v. Latham Pool Prods, where the CAFC affirmed the grant of a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement. The court found that the accused design was 'plainly dissimilar' from the patented design, without the need to consider prior art. This ruling was supported by amicus briefs arguing that the 'plainly dissimilar' test was not intended to be a stand-alone infringement test, but rather to clarify that non-infringement could be found without prior art consideration in clear-cut cases.

Another significant decision was made in Dynamite Marketing, Inc. v. The WowLine, Inc., where the CAFC affirmed the dismissal of the case due to a failure to provide clear and convincing reasons for combining specific design features from identified prior art references to produce the overall appearance of the patented design.

Top Brand v. Cozy Comfort Co. LLC saw the court grant judgment as a matter of law after a jury found infringement, as the accused design was within the scope of the subject matter surrendered during prosecution.

In LKQ v. GM, the CAFC reset design patent obviousness law, moving away from overly rigid threshold requirements for primary and secondary references to a more flexible approach. The court also focused the analysis by requiring prior art references to be analogous.

The court in ABC Corp. I v. Schedule A confirmed its 2022 related case instruction that 'where a dominant feature of the patented design and the accused products appears in the prior art, the focus of infringement will be on other features of the design.'

Several more design patent cases are anticipated in 2025, including Smartrend Manufacturing Group (SMG), Inc. v. Opti-Luxx Inc., Range of Motion Products v. Armaid Co., and North Star Tech Int'l Ltd. v. Latham Pool Prods (request for rehearing). In North Star's request for rehearing, two amicus briefs argue that the patented and accused designs sharing 'common conspicuous feature' and 'common combination' are factors which could favor prior art review.

In the LKQ v. GM decision, the court stated that obviousness of a patented design is determined based on factual criteria similar to those used for utility patent under § 103. North Star proposes that the 'sufficiently distinct' test should be either discarded or reserved for rare cases where the differences are immediately apparent.

The court in Columbia Sportswear N.A. Inc. v. Seirus Innovative Accessories, Inc. addressed the importance of comparison prior art in design patent infringement analysis. Smartrend Manufacturing Group (SMG), Inc. v. Opti-Luxx Inc. argues the district court erred in construing the patented design as claiming both a transparent and a translucent lens, warranting a new trial.

Lashify, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n established that there is no exclusion from labor when the human activity employed is for sales, marketing, warehousing, quality control, or distribution in a Section 337 infringing import investigation. In re Floyd determined that an applicant's own utility patent disclosure of 6×6 and 6×4 grids does not support a design priority claim when anticipating a claimed design's 5 x 6 grid.

In The Kong Company, LLC v. Bounce Enterprises, a district court recently ordered that assignor estoppel bars defendants from asserting invalidity defenses except for obviousness.

These decisions serve as a testament to the ongoing evolution of design patent law, with the CAFC continuing to shape the legal landscape to better reflect the complexities of modern design and technology.