Design Ideas file for infringement against Bed Bath & Beyond and MSA

On Friday, November 30, 2012, Design Ideas (plaintiff) recorded a complaint against Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBA) and MSA Products (defendants) for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court of Illinois (case no. 3:12-cv-03327). 

Design Ideas is engaged in designing, manufacturing and distributing a range of unique office and household goods made of metal flesh. BBA (AKA B3) is a chain of domestic merchandise retail stores across United States, New Zealand and Canada. Formed in 1971, they sell goods primarily for the bedroom and bathroom, as well as kitchen and dining room. MSA manufactures and sells consumer products to retailers. 

The patents involved in this suit are:

Patent Number Current Assignee[1]	Issued Date	Expiration Date[2]	Title
USD436239 Wells Fargo Bank	Jan 09, 2001	N/A	Mesh cart
USD479272 Wells Fargo Bank	Sep 02, 2003	Sep 02, 2017	Mesh basket
USD517769 Wells Fargo Bank	Mar 21, 2006	Mar 21, 2020	Portion of a rolling cart

Note: Table information sourced from Maxval’s Assignment Database.

The above 3 patents are owned by Design Ideas (as per face page) and cover the ornamental design for a mesh cart (Fig.1), mesh basket (Fig.2) and a portion of a rolling cart (Fig.3). Plaintiff began working on a series of metal mesh office and home accessories, including mesh baskets and frames used to store office and household items. Patented products including metal mesh basket and frame product are marked with its patent number. Plaintiff alleges that defendants infringe the above design patents through its sale of metal mesh basket and frame product (sometimes known as Three Tier Slim Bath Cart as in Fig.4) (item number 81391801001) that replicates the design of ‘239, ‘272 and ‘769 patents.

                Fig.1         Fig.2             Fig.3               Fig.4

Design Ideas has filed patent infringement suit against the following companies:

Company	Case Number	Date Filed	Status
Things Remembered	3:2007cv03077	03/16/2007	Pending
Pier 1 Imports	3:03-cv-03270	12/01/2003	Voluntary Dismissal
World Kitchen	3:03-cv-03269	12/01/2003	Closed

If you are interested in knowing more about the cases filed by Design Ideas, please contact us.

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[1] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.

[2] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.