{"id":300,"date":"2017-06-05T10:30:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T14:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/?p=300"},"modified":"2017-06-07T18:22:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T22:22:02","slug":"promise-to-arbitrate-claims-arising-under-is-narrower-than-promise-to-arbitrate-claims-relating-to-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"Promise to Arbitrate Claims “Arising Under” is Narrower than Promise to Arbitrate Claims “Relating to” Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Evans v. Building Materials Corporation of American<\/a>, [2016-2427](June 5, 2017), the Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of a motion to dismiss a complaint for patent infringement and trade dress infringement.<\/p>\n

Evans\u00a0U.S. Design Patent No. D575,509 on a three-dimensional roofing model designed to be used by\u00a0a seller of roofing products during a sales pitch. \u00a0He entered into an agreement with GAF under which GAF agreed to promote the\u00a0product to GAF\u2019s network of certified contractors, Evans agreed to sell the product at\u00a0discounted prices to the GAF contractors and to pay GAF a percentage of sales. \u00a0The Agreement contained an arbitration clause for “any dispute or disagreement [that] arises\u00a0under this Agreement.”<\/p>\n

Evans sued alleging that after termination of the agreement, GAF made and sold infringing roofing models. \u00a0GAF moved to dismiss or stay pending arbitration, invoking the arbitration clause. \u00a0The district court found that 2009 agreement has expired, and thus did not apply, and alternatively, that the present dispute did not “arise under” the terminated 2009 agreement.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit found GAF’s contention “wholly groundless.” The Federal Circuit said that the arbitration clause only reaches claims arising under the 2009 agreement. GAF conceded that under controlling Fourth\u00a0Circuit precedent the focus is \u201cwhether the claims\u00a0at issue have a direct nexus<\/em> to the contractual obligations,\u00a0and more specifically, whether the claims are \u2018related to\u00a0the interpretation and performance of the contract itself.\u2019\u201d The Federal Circuit noted that the “arising under” language was narrower than “relating to” — under which a claim\u00a0may be arbitrable if it has a \u201csignificant relationship\u201d to\u00a0the contract, regardless of whether it arises under the\u00a0contract itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Evans v. Building Materials Corporation of American, [2016-2427](June 5, 2017), the Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of a motion to dismiss a complaint for patent infringement and trade dress infringement. Evans\u00a0U.S. Design Patent No. D575,509 on a three-dimensional roofing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agreements","category-arbitration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipmanagement.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}