UNIQUE CONCEPTS, INC., and FLOYD M. BASLOW, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. KEVIN BROWN d/b/a CREATIVE WALLS, TEMPLAR and SCHRAM, and WORLD PLASTICS EXTRUDERS, INC., Defendants-Appellees, 939 F.2d 1558

Summary

Appellants brought suit alleging that certain products made by appellees infringed claims of appellant's patent. The district court granted judgment for appellees. On appeal, the court affirmed and held that the district court did not clearly err in finding that appellees' product did not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. The court reasoned that appellants' product performed and achieved the results in a substantially different way. Further, the court held that the district court appropriately applied the infringement by equivalents test in analyzing the alleged patent infringement. Also, the court held that literal infringement was precluded because the plain language of the claim included two distinct types of elements of the claimed product.