World Kitchen and OXO v. Zyliss Haushaltwaren (Fed. Cir. 2005) (nonprecedential).
OXO and Zyliss both make salad spinners. OXO’s spinner has “push-to-spin” technology while the Zyliss spinner uses a pull-cord. OXO sued for patent infringement and asked for a preliminary injunction to get the Zyliss product off the market. After a preliminary claim construction the district court denied the PI motion, finding that OXO had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits.
On appeal, OXO argued that lower court erred by construing the term “lid” according to its ordinary meaning. The CAFC, however, affirmed — agreeing with the district court that a “lid” is “something that covers the opening of a hollow container,” but does not include items secondarily attached to the lid that do not serve the function of covering the opening. Thus, in this case, the brake disc used to stop the salad spinner is not part of the lid because it does not participate in covering “the opening of a hollow container.” (File under “if it looks like deference and smell like deference . . .”).
Denial of PI affirmed.