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  • Business and Commercial Laws Infringement

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    Raktim Chowdhury
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    An appeals court ruled that an insurance company did not have to indemnify a kitchen products company that was sued for patent infringement on one of its tea kettle designs. The company claimed the policy covered advertising injuries, but the court determined that merely selling an infringing product is not the same as an injury arising from advertising activities. The policy required the injury to result from an offense committed during advertising, which was not the case as the infringement stemmed from the sale of the product itself rather than any advertisements. The court found the insurance policy did not reasonably cover violations of design patents or other statutes.

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    An appeals court ruled that an insurance company did not have to indemnify a kitchen products company that was sued for patent infringement on one of its tea kettle designs. The company claimed the policy covered advertising injuries, but the court determined that merely selling an infringing product is not the same as an injury arising from advertising activities. The policy required the injury to result from an offense committed during advertising, which was not the case as the infringement stemmed from the sale of the product itself rather than any advertisements. The court found the insurance policy did not reasonably cover violations of design patents or other statutes.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    7 views7 pages

    Business and Commercial Laws Infringement

    Uploaded by

    Raktim Chowdhury
    An appeals court ruled that an insurance company did not have to indemnify a kitchen products company that was sued for patent infringement on one of its tea kettle designs. The company claimed the policy covered advertising injuries, but the court determined that merely selling an infringing product is not the same as an injury arising from advertising activities. The policy required the injury to result from an offense committed during advertising, which was not the case as the infringement stemmed from the sale of the product itself rather than any advertisements. The court found the insurance policy did not reasonably cover violations of design patents or other statutes.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 7

    Business and Commercial laws Topic - product infringement

    By Raktim Chowdhury Roll no- 257, Sec- C, PGDIM

    Description
    Appeals court held that an insurer had no obligation to indemnify a company sued for product infringement. The policy covered misappropriation suits that arose from advertising; the sale of a product that violates a patent is not an advertising injury

    CASE SUMMARY
    EKCO markets kitchen products, including metal tea kettles. It was sued by Chantal, a cookware company, which claimed that a particular tea kettle EKCO sold was a copy of Chantal's tea kettle that was protected by a design patent. Chantal claimed trade dress infringement and unfair competition in violation of the Lanham Act.. EKCO had a general commercial liability (GCL) policy with Travelers

    Facts
    EKCO contended that Travelers was obligated to defend and indemnify EKCO because a clause in the policy stated that it covered claims based upon "advertising injury caused by an offense committed in the course of advertising your goods, products or services." Travelers refused to defend, so EKCO sued. The trial court held that the suit was caused by advertising injury, so Travelers was responsible. Travelers appealed

    Decision
    Reversed. The advertising injury provision is unclear. The law favors the insured where a policy is ambiguous. However, in this case, a reasonable reading favors the insurer. The policy states that there is coverage if 1) there is injury "arising out of" a defined offense and 2) the offense "must be committed in the course of advertising your goods."

    Decision
    The defined injury pointed to by EKCO in the policy is "misappropriation of advertising ideas or style of doing business." This does not cover infringement of a design patent; that is not common law misappropriation but a violation of a statute. It is not reasonable to believe that the policy covered all misappropriations of patents, copyrights and trademarks. Further, selling a tea kettle is not "advertising," even if there is advertising in the process of selling the product

    Citation
    EKCO Group, Inc. v. Travelers Indemnity Company of Illinois, 273 F.3d 409 (1st Cir., 2001)

    Thank You

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