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Patent Law Keyed to Adelman
Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc.
Facts
In 1976, Plaintiff produced a popular recreational fiberglass boat design and sold it under the trade name 5VBR. There was no record of a patent application for the design. In 1983, a Florida statute was passed that made it illegal to duplicate a manufactured vessel hull using the direct molding process without permission. Under this statute, the Plaintiff sued the Defendant and won damages including attorney fees, and Defendant was prohibited by injunction from further production of the design. The Florida Supreme Court struck down the law, finding that it conflicted with the balance between the encouragement of invention and the free access to unpatented ideas as passed by Congress in the federal patent statute. A few years earlier, a California appeals court had upheld a similar law. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear the case in order to resolve the conflict.
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