Lex Lumina Wins Rare Federal Circuit En Banc Rehearing in Landmark Design Patent Case

May 21, 2024 - Today Lex Lumina’s Mark Lemley and Mark McKenna, alongside lawyers from Irwin IP LLP, won a landmark appeal on behalf of aftermarket auto-parts provider LKQ following en banc rehearing by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Tech. Ops. LLC, Fed Cir., 21-2348. Lemley argued the appeal on behalf of LKQ. In its rare full-court decision, the Federal Circuit threw out a longstanding test for assessing nonobviousness of design patents and sent the case back for reconsideration by a U.S. Patent Office tribunal.

Read the Court’s decision here. Read more in Reuters, Yahoo! Finance, Patently-O, and Managing IP.