Amazon, Costco, Best Buy facing micro-battery infringement claims
Amazon, Costco Wholesale and Best Buy Co are facing patent infringement claims from German battery manufacturer Varta, which alleges that the retailers are selling Chinese copies of Varta’s ‘CoinPower’ design for tiny power packs.
In three separate filings ( 20-cv-00051, 20-cv-00052, 20-cv-00054) on Tuesday, February 24, at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Varta claimed the defendants are selling, or offering for sale in the US, imports with infringing micro-batteries, including batteries from China’s EVE Energy found in products such as wireless earphones.
“The micro-batteries provide a source of rechargeable power for the wireless earphones and other electronic devices in which they are included,” said the filings, and include a “spiral winding with end faces facing in the axial direction relative to the flat bottom area”, a design very similar to Varta’s patent-protected design.
In the mid-to-late 2000s, the German company “undertook efforts to design and develop a novel and proprietary micro-battery technology with excellent mechanical strength characteristics, increased power density, and better space utilisation”, said the court filings.
Varta sells and offers for sale its patented micro-batteries in the US and worldwide under the trademark CoinPower, said all three court filings, and spent a “great deal of time, effort, and expense” on their research and development.
“In recognition of the breakthrough nature of its invention, Varta was granted an international patent portfolio covering various aspects of the CoinPower micro-batteries, including a number of patents in the US, with additional patent applications still pending in the US Patent and Trademark Office,” said the filings.
Between October 2015 and October 2017, Varta was issued with US patent numbers 9,153,835, 9,496,581 and 9,799,913. All three patents are related to “button cells [micro-batteries] and method for producing same”.
The German company is seeking a full jury trial. Varta is seeking a judgment that sees the defendants “liable for infringement of the ’835 patent, the ’581 patent, and the ’913 patent”. It is also seeking an award against the defendants of compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees.
Varta manufactures micro-batteries for small electronic devices, as well as other larger power packs. Best Buy is a US multinational consumer electronics retailer, and Costco Wholesale is a US multinational corporation operating a chain of membership-only warehouse clubs.
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