Nonobviousness Of Commercially Successful Designs: Mmm, Mmm, Not So Fast

It is said that Andy Warhol painted the famous Campbell's Soup Cans after an art gallery proprietor told him to paint "something you see every day and something that everybody would recognize." While Mr. Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can is now obviously quintessential pop art, so too are the grocery store displays used to sell those soup cans according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Last week, the Court clarified how the objective indicia of nonobviousness should be applied to successful and praise-worthy soup can displays. Campbell Soup Co. v. Gamon Plus, Inc., Nos. 2020-2344, 2021-1019, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 24760 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 19, 2021).

Campbell Soup Company ("Campbell") and its affiliates were accused of infringing two of Gamon Plus, Inc.'s ("Gamon") design patents for a vertical gravity feed dispenser. For years Campbell used Gamon's product, called the iQ Maximizer, praised it publicly, and attributed to it Cambell's success in the