The U.S. Supreme Court granted Samsung’s petition for writ of certiorari in the Samsung v. Apple appeal. The grant was limited to Question 2 from the petition, which is as follows:

2. Where a design patent is applied to only a component of a product, should an award of infringer’s profits be limited to those profits attributable to the component?

Samsung’s position in its petition is that the three design patents at issue (U.S. Design Patent Nos. D618,677, D593,087, and D604,305) “cover only specific, limited portions of a smartphone’s design: a particular black rectangular round-cornered front face, a substantially similar rectangular round-cornered front face plus the surrounding rim or ‘bezel,’ and a particular colorful grid of sixteen icons.” Samsung states that, despite this limited coverage, “the Federal Circuit allowed the jury to award Samsung’s entire profits from the sale of smartphones found to contain the patented designs—here totaling $399 million.” The Federal Circuit opinion can be found here . Contrary to the position taken by the Federal Circuit, Samsung does not believe that Section 289 of the Patent Act compels this result. Instead, Samsung’s position is that “Section 289 nowhere defines the ‘article of manufacture’ to which a patented design is applied as the entire product (here, a smartphone) rather than the portion of the product depicted in the design patent.”

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NIKE, Inc. (“Nike”) filed suit against Fujiann Bestwinn (China) Industry Co., Ltd. (“Bestwinn”) on February 17, 2016 in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, alleging infringement of a number of Nike’s design patents for various aspects of athletic shoes.

In the complaint, Nike alleges Bestwinn infringes its design patents by attending the WSA trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada at least twice yearly and promoting and selling the infringing shoes. 

The patents detailed in the suit include eighteen Nike design patents issued between April 26, 2011 and December 29, 2015 pertaining to Nike's shoe designs (see Table 1 below from the complaint).

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Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") filed suit against Corel Corporation and Corel Inc. (“Corel”) in the Northern District Court of California, seeking to recover damages and costs for patent infringement.

In the complaint, Microsoft alleges Corel willfully infringes a number of Microsoft utility and design patents.  In particular, Microsoft accuses Corel of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 8,255,828 (“the ‘828 patent”); 7,703,036 (“the ‘036 patent”); 7,047,501 (“the ‘501 patent”); 5,715,415 (“the ‘415 patent”); 5,510,980 (“the ‘980 patent”); D550,237 (“the D‘237 patent”); D554,140 (“the D‘140 patent”); D564,532 (“the D‘532 patent”); and D570,865 (“the D‘865 patent”), all relating to aspects of graphical user interfaces ("GUIs") used in productivity software applications, such as Microsoft Office.

The four design patents forming the basis for part of the complaint are directed to "ornamental designs for parts of Microsoft user interfaces, including the Microsoft Ribbon" and, according to Microsoft, "Corel's advertising makes the copied Microsoft interfaces one of the central selling points of Corel's products:  'With a familiar Ribbon-style interface, Corel® Office looks like the office software you're used to, making it easy to get to work right away.'" 

Accused Corel products associated with the asserted design patents include CorelCAD 2014-2016 and Corel Home Office, which includes Corel Write, Corel Calculate, and Corel Show.

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NIKE, Inc. (“Nike”) filed suit against Skechers U.S.A., Inc. (“Skechers”) on January 4, 2016 in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, Portland Division, seeking to recover damages and costs from Skechers. In the complaint, Nike alleges Skechers infringes eight Nike design patents issued between January 7, 2014 and March 31, 2015 pertaining to shoe “uppers” and shoe soles (see Table 1 below from the complaint).

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Robert Gordon Industries, Ltd. ("Robert Gordon”) filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of noninfringement against Thermos, LLC (“Thermos”) on November 18, 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.  Meanwhile, Thermos filed its own patent infringement action against Robert Gordon in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, also on November 18, 2015.

According to Robert Gordon, the declaratory judgment action was filed as a result of Thermos' continued efforts “to extract a royalty payment under two Thermos patents; United States Patent No. D622,547 entitled 'Tumbler' ('the ‘547 patent') and United States Patent No. 8,348,078 entitled 'Leak Proof Drinking Lid With Pressure Relief' ('the ‘078 patent')," with regard to Robert Gordon’s Empire VM-57 Tumbler, despite Robert Gordon's willingness to discontinue this product and pay Thermos a $3,000.00 royalty (based on 5% of past sales).  Robert Gordon seeks a jury trial to obtain a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of each of the aforementioned Thermos patents. 

For its part, Thermos asserted that Robert Gordon has "manufactured, imported, sold and/or offered for sale tumblers...in the United States that infringe the '547 patent," such as tumbler "SKU # VM-57 Silver" offered for sale on Robert Gordon's website.   

Shown below, from left to right, are patent illustrations corresponding to Thermos' '547 patent (tumbler) and '078 patent (lid) and an image showing Robert Gordon's accused Empire VM-57 tumbler (based on Exhibit B from Thermos' complaint), respectively. 

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