Action Proceeding Against Campbell Soup Company in U.S. District Court in Chicago Based on Utility Patents Successfully Defended by Tiajoloff and Kelly In Inter Partes Review Proceedings at U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Action for infringement of two utility patents drafted by us at Tiajoloff & Kelly is now proceeding against the Campbell Soup company and other defendants for our client, Gamon Plus, Inc.

The article covered by the Gamon patents in suit is a display rack for Campbell Soup cans that was used across the country and is very familiar to the public. It has been established that Campbell Soup purchased about $30 million of the display racks from Gamon, and then copied the patented Gamon display racks using another supplier and installed them across the U.S., deriving substantial sales increases for Campbell Soup from the infringement.

After filing of the lawsuit, the two patents in suit, U.S. Patent 8,827,111 and U.S. Patent 9,144,326, were attacked by Campbell Soup in petitions for inter partes reviews (referred to usually as IPRs) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

IPRs are proceedings that are initiated by a petition filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the PTAB) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in which the challenger sets out theories for invalidity of a challenged patent. The patent owner can respond to the challenge, after which the PTAB decides to institute an IPR or not. If instituted, a longer trial procedure of submissions and arguments follows, and the PTAB then issues a Final Written Decision as to whether the challenged patent is valid or not.

Our opposition to the Campbell Soup petition convinced the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to refuse to institute any IPR against U.S. Patent 9,144,326 (see the decision not to institute an IPR provided here).

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board did, however, allow the IPR against U.S. Patent 8,827,111 to proceed, but, after a full IPR trial, claims of that patent were also held valid by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and that finding of validity was affirmed on appeal by Campbell Soup to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. See Campbell Soup v. Gamon Plus, Inc., No. 2020-2322, 2021 WL 3671366 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 19, 2021), provided here.

The patent infringement action is now proceeding in Chicago against Campbell Soup and other defendants in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.