Copper pots and pans (or at least copper in color) are the latest sensation in cookware. Big sellers such as Copper Chef (Tristar Products, Inc.), Red Copper (Telebrands Corp.) and Gotham Steel (E Mishan & Sons, Inc (“Emson”)) have spent thousands in marketing dollars to promote these competing products. However, with so many cooks in the kitchen, someone is bound to get burned; and if Keith Mirchandani has it his way, it won’t be Tristar.

On February 21, 2017 Tristar filed lawsuits against Telebrands (and Bulbhead.com LLC) and Emson for patent infringement, trade dress infringement and unfair competition. According to the complaints, Tristar has been marketing its Copper Chef product line since as early as June 2016 and holds three patents for its Copper Chef line, two of which were just issued this month. Tristar has also filed for injunctions to prevent Telebrands and Emson from “making, using, selling [and] offering for sale” the products allegedly infringing on the Copper Chef line. As of today, February 28, 2017, the orders have yet to be granted.

This isn’t the first time these companies have faced off in court, and at least Telebrands has proven time and time again that it has the recipe for stalling litigation so it can continue to sell a product. Telebrands’ secret sauce: the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”).

When an action is filed with the PTAB, courts halt litigation until such time that the PTAB makes a ruling on whether the patent in question is valid. In at least two separate lawsuits brought against Telebrands for patent infringement (for its Pocket Hose & Balloon Bonanza products), the company has filed invalidation proceedings with the PTAB challenging the validity of the patents it was accused of infringing. The strategy for invalidation is that if the patent is determined to have been improperly issued then, no infringement could have occurred. Telebrands successfully invalidated some of the patent claims with regard to the balloon product, but the PTAB declined to review the hose patent on the basis that it was determined to be valid. The action is now proceeding in court and could still take years to reach an outcome.

A successful product invites copycats, and Tristar will likely have a long battle on its hands for this one. It will be interesting to see if Telebrands stays true to its methods and attempts to invalidate Tristar’s patents.

It is imperative to have seasoned intellectual property attorneys filing patents and trademarks and diligently monitoring infringing activity as well as advising you on the risks of infringing third party patents. In some instances, it is more cost effective to license a product than to knock it off and face the consequences. A well-planned IP strategy will help product owners to better survive or avoid the messy and lengthy proceedings of IP litigation. Remember, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Please email Jessica@DigitalLawGroup.com if you have any questions or would like more information regarding the content above.

The guidelines provide direction on antitrust issues that may arise when licensing intellectual property. The proposed updates to the guidelines embrace three general principles:

1. “For the purpose of antitrust analysis, the Agencies apply the same analysis to conduct involving intellectual property as to conduct involving other forms of property, taking into account the specific characteristics of a particular property right.”
2. “The Agencies do not presume that intellectual property creates market power in the antitrust context.”
3. “The Agencies recognize that intellectual property licensing allows firms to combine complementary factors of production and is generally pro-competitive.”

With those principles in mind, the guidelines remain largely unchanged. Below is a summary of two areas that underwent a great deal of redlining, whether changing or affirming the rules due to recent developments.

Intellectual Property and Market Power

The agencies have reiterated in the revised guidelines – including in the principles above – that intellectual property ownership does not create a presumption of market power. Section 2.2 states “market power (or even a monopoly) that is solely ‘a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident’ does not violate the antitrust laws.”

This reflects the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Illinois Tool Works Inc. v. Independent Ink Inc., in which the court held that a patent does not necessarily confer market power on the patentee, and is good news for intellectual property owners. For example, you can own a great deal of patents in – let’s say – kitchen products, but without a showing of more, such as anticompetitive behavior, there is no presumption of market power and thus no prima facie case for antitrust violations.

Section 3.2 goes on to address market power and licensing agreements. As stated in the guidelines, licensing arrangements still raise anticompetitive concerns if they are likely to have an adverse effect on product prices and quality, for example. The proposed revisions add that if a licensing agreement appears to have anticompetitive effects, the FTC and DOJ normally will identify the effected markets and will typically analyze the competitive effects within the relevant market(s).

So, unlike above where mere ownership of intellectual property does not create a presumption of market power, it appears that a licensing arrangement for all of those patents in kitchen products may more quickly garner the attention and scrutiny of the agencies.

Resale Price Maintenance

The most notable change, perhaps, comes in the area of resale price maintenance. Minimum resale price maintenance usually refers to a pricing arrangement whereby a manufacturer requires resellers to sell at or above a certain price point. The same principle applies to intellectual property licensing agreements when the property owner conditions the license on a particular minimum resale price. The 1995 Guidelines stipulate that it is, per se, illegal for a licensor of intellectual property to fix a licensee’s resale price. However, due to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc. v. PSKS Inc. rejecting the per se analysis, the proposed guidelines now apply a rule of reason analysis to be applied on a case-by-case basis to weigh the competitive benefits against the harms of the agreement.

For more information on the proposed changes to the guidelines, see the redline copy, which can be found here. The deadline for public comment is September 26.