Hafco Foundry & Machine Co. v. GMS Mine Repair & Maintenance, Inc., No. 18-1904 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
Annotate this CaseHafco’s patent, issued in 2013, covers a “Rock Dust Blower” used to distribute rock dust in areas such as coal mines, where rock dust is applied to interior surfaces, to control the explosive hazards of coal dust. Hafco contracted with GMS to serve as the distributor of Hafco’s blower for sale to mining customers. In 2015, Hafco terminated this arrangement, stating that performance was poor. GMS then produced a rock dust blower for sale to mining customers. Hafco sued for infringement. GMS filed an unsuccessful pretrial motion for patent invalidity. The jury found GMS liable for willful infringement and awarded damages of $123,650. The court entered a permanent injunction against infringement but remitted the damages award to zero, offering a new trial on damages. The Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment of infringement and the denial of GMS’ request for a new trial and remanded the case. The jury was correctly instructed that the question is how the ordinary observer would view the article as a whole. Given that there was no prior art introduced at trial, no attempt by GMS to introduce the prior art, and no proposed jury instruction on the issue, the purported exclusion of this instruction cannot be an error.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on April 21, 2020.
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