By Eric Schweibenz and Alex Englehart
On June 13, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its
nonprecedential opinion in
Garmin Int’l., Inc. v. ITC (2016-1572). This was an appeal from the U.S. International Trade Commission’s (“the Commission”) final determination finding,
inter alia, that Garmin International, Inc., Garmin USA, Inc., and Garmin Corp. (collectively, “Garmin”) infringe certain claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,305,840 (the ’840 patent) and 8,605,550 (the ’550 patent) and that such claims are not invalid. The underlying investigation is
Certain Marine Sonar Imaging Devices, Including Downscan and Sidescan Devices, Products Containing the Same, and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-921).
See our
July 11, 2014 post for more details on the underlying investigation.
By way of background, the underlying investigation is based on a June 9, 2014 complaint filed by Navico, Inc. and Navico Holding AS (collectively, “Navico”) alleging violation of Section 337 in the importation into the U.S. and sale of certain marine sonar imaging devices that allegedly infringe one or more claims of the ’840 patent, the ’550 patent, and U.S. Patent No. 8,300,499. On December 1, 2015, the Commission issued its final determination finding that Garmin’s DownVü products infringe certain claims of the ’840 and ’550 patents. The Commission further found that many of the asserted claims of the ’840 and ’550 patents are not invalid as obvious over a 1960 article by Tucker entitled “Narrow-beam echo-ranger for fishery and geological investigations” (“Tucker”) and U.S. Patent No. 7,652,952 to Betts (“Betts”).
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