Oakley aims at eyewear distributor in design patent claim
Sunglasses manufacturer Oakley has taken aim at Apollo Eyewear, an importer and distributor of eyewear products, in a design patent infringement claim.
In the claim, filed on Monday, October 31 at the US District Court for the Southern District of California, Oakley alleged that Apollo had infringed a number of its design patents.
“Oakley has been actively engaged in the manufacture and sale of high quality eyewear since at least 1985,”said the suit. “Oakley is the manufacturer and retailer of several lines of eyewear that have enjoyed substantial success and are protected by various intellectual property rights owned by Oakley.”
The design patents include US numbers D676,480; D662,967; D692,047; D676,479; D649,579; D547,794; D554,689; D556,818; D724,135; and D700,933. All the patents concern “eyeglasses”.
In one allegation, Oakley said that Apollo’s R8020 design infringed its D676,480 design patent, as it would “appear to an ordinary observer to be substantially similar”.
Oakley added that Apollo’s “wilful and deliberate”infringement has caused Oakley to “suffer irreparable injury to its business”.
The eyewear manufacturer is seeking injunctive relief, an account of all gains made from the infringement, triple damages and a jury trial.
It has also asked for costs, attorneys’fees, interests and further relief that the court deems just and proper.
Robert Kenney, partner at intellectual property law firm BSKB, said: “The asserted Oakley patents are narrowly focused to claim only certain elements of the eyewear.”
He added that the filing is “not surprising” in that Oakley is “understandably aggressive in obtaining, protecting and enforcing patents and other intellectual property rights”.
Kenney explained that in a crowded field such as eyewear, where there are undoubtedly a vast number of prior art designs, the “scope of the issued patents may be limited to smaller design elements in view of the significant prior art”.
“This is generally important because, if the accused design is much closer to the prior art than to the patented design, there is a greater possibility that infringement would not be found,” he said.
