Halfway There: Judge Wang Recommends Dismissing Design Patent Claims But Allowing Utility Patent Claims | Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
On March 23, 2023, Magistrate Judge Wang (S.D.N.Y.) recommended granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ T-Mobile, USA, Inc. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc.’s (collectively, “Defendants”) motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) filed by Plaintiff Bobcar Media, LLC (“Plaintiff”). The FAC alleged, inter alia, patent infringement of both utility and design patents by promotional vehicles supplied by Aardvark Event Logistics, Inc. (“Aardvark”).
With respect to Plaintiff’s claim of infringement of its design patents, Defendants argued that the FAC did not plausibly allege design patent infringement. In comparing the drawings from Plaintiff’s design patents and the photos of Defendants’ promotional vehicles, the Court agreed with Defendants that the two are not substantially similar:
With respect to the asserted utility patents, Defendants argued that the patent claims reflect nothing more than an abstracted recitation of the design covered by Plaintiff’s design patents, which in effect concedes that the utility patent claims cannot pass muster under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Court disagreed with Defendants. It found that Plaintiff’s utility patents recite a specific solution for using vehicles for advertising. In doing so, the Court noted that Plaintiff did not claim a monopoly over the general principle of using vehicles to conduct mobile marketing campaigns. Resolving every doubt in the pleader’s favor at this stage, the Court recommended denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s claim of infringement of its utility patents.
Case: Bobcar Media, LLC v. T-Mobile, USA, Inc., et al., No. 21-CV-5685 (OWT), Dkt. No. 64 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 23, 2023)
