Claim Language Could Limit Design Patent Where Specific Article of Manufacture Not Shown in Figures

In Curver Luxembourg, SARL v. Home Expressions Inc., No. 2018-2214 (Fed. Cir. Sep. 12, 2019), the Federal Circuit held claim language could limit the scope of a design patent to a specific article of manufacture where the claim language supplies the only instance of an article of manufacture that appears nowhere in the figures.

Curver owns a design patent that claims an “ornamental design for a pattern for a chair” and has figures that do not show a chair. Curver asserted that Home Expressions’ baskets incorporating the design infringed. Home Expressions moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the design patent claim was limited to chairs and, thus, its baskets fell outside the scope of the claim. The district court agreed and dismissed the complaint.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the district court properly construed the claim as limited to chairs and affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. It reasoned that its own precedent, the unchallenged governing regulation, and agency practice do not sanction granting a patent on a surface ornamentation per se; rather, the surface ornamentation must be tethered to an article of manufacture. While acknowledging that courts typically look to the figures to define the scope of a design patent claim, the Court held it could not ignore the only identification of an article of manufacture recited in the claim itself.