## Facts

- Calmar and Arminak competed in selling trigger sprayers, supplying sprayer components to industrial purchasers who incorporated them into household liquid products.
- Calmar owned two 1997 design patents covering trigger-sprayer “shrouds” (outer covers behind the nozzle and above the trigger): U.S. Design Patent Nos. D381,581 (commercially embodied by Calmar’s “ERGO” shroud) and D377,602 (no commercial embodiment).
- In 2004, Arminak began selling the “AA Trigger” sprayer with a shroud design Calmar asserted infringed both patents.
- Calmar notified at least one of Arminak’s customers of alleged infringement; Arminak filed a declaratory judgment action for noninfringement and later asserted invalidity and state-law claims.
- Calmar counterclaimed for design patent infringement, contending Arminak’s shroud was substantially similar and captured the patents’ “points of novelty,” including a “prominent horizontal line” and an assertedly distinctive overall shroud shape.
- The district court granted Arminak summary judgment of noninfringement and stayed remaining claims; Calmar appealed.

## Issues

1. Who is the relevant “ordinary observer” for assessing design-patent infringement where the products are sold to industrial purchasers for incorporation into consumer goods?
2. Whether the accused shroud infringed under the ordinary observer test (in view of prior art) and the point of novelty test.
3. Whether the district court’s detailed verbal description of the patented designs improperly narrowed the scope of the design patents.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit affirmed the summary judgment of noninfringement.
- The court held the relevant ordinary observer was the industrial purchaser of trigger sprayers, not the retail consumer of the finished household product.
- Applying the ordinary observer test in light of the prior art, the court agreed that a knowledgeable industrial buyer would not be deceived into believing the accused shroud was the same as the patented designs.
- Under the point of novelty test, the court held the accused shroud did not appropriate Calmar’s asserted novel ornamental features (including the “prominent horizontal line” and the claimed overall shape).
- The court rejected Calmar’s argument that the district court’s claim construction was impermissibly narrow, holding the detailed description properly conveyed the design as a whole for comparison purposes.

## Legal Principles

- The “ordinary observer” for design-patent infringement is determined by the typical purchaser in the actual market for the accused and patented designs; where sales are to industrial buyers, that buyer is the relevant observer.
- Infringement requires substantial similarity such that the ordinary observer, giving the attention a purchaser usually gives, would be deceived into purchasing one design supposing it to be the other, considered in view of the prior art.
- Under the then-applicable point of novelty test, the accused design must appropriate the patented design’s novel ornamental features that distinguish it from the prior art.
- A court may provide a detailed verbal description of a claimed design to aid the comparison, so long as the description communicates the overall design and does not improperly limit the claim to isolated elements.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit affirmed noninfringement because the relevant purchasers were industrial buyers who would perceive clear visual differences between the shrouds, and the accused design did not incorporate the asserted novel ornamental features of Calmar’s design patents; the district court’s detailed design description was permissible as a tool for overall visual comparison.


Arminak & Assocs., Inc. v. Saint-Gobain Calmar, Inc., 501 F.3d 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2007)