NORTH STAR v. LATHAM DESIGN PATENT APPEAL ARGUED AT FEDERAL CIRCUIT

The oral argument in North Star Technology International Limited v. Latham Pool Products (No. 2023-2138) was held April 8, 2025 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  The 3-judge panel consisted of Judges Lourie, Chen and Hughes.  Full disclosure:  I am lead counsel for North Star in this appeal.

North Star sued Latham for infringing U.S. Pat. No. D791,966 on the design of a swimming pool. My previous blog post summarized the district court’s order granting summary judgment of non-infringement in favor of Latham.     

The key issue in the case, insofar as design patents are concerned, is whether the district court properly decided on summary judgment that the patented and accused designs were “sufficiently distinct”, and therefore the accused design did not infringe, rather than let that issue be tried to a jury.

I thoroughly explored this topic in my paper “Sufficiently Distinct is Insufficient to Determine Design Patent Infringement”, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the law journal IP Theory of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

The appeal briefs detail the arguments of the parties. Here is North Star’s opening brief, Latham’s response, and North Star’s reply brief.

Matthew Dowd of Dowd Scheffel argued for North Star, while Russel Korn of Kilpatrick Townsend argued for Latham. A recording of the oral argument is here.

A decision from the Court is expected in 3-4 months.