Q: I am trying to design a rotomolded cooler and I know Yeti has been suing lately and I was wondering if my product is ok?
I see that they have a patent for insulating containers and the rubber T strap latch design and I do not know if I should just completely wipe out my design or what I am ok with or not ok with doing. If I have any rubber strap is that patented? Because all the competitors have this strap and it is insulated and the only company that I am aware of that is getting sued is Rtic. Thanks for the help
A:
It is great to see new businesses getting into rotomolded cooler business. It is surprising how expensive these coolers are, and hopefully, the prices are going to go down to more reasonable levels.
The Yeti v Rtic lawsuit was settled earlier last month. Given that the popular press has deemed the two lines of coolers to be very similar, and that there have been accusations of copying, I am not surprised that the patent owner sued.
That lawsuit should not preclude you from going into the rotomolded cooler business. There likely are plenty of ways of designing a cooler that does not infringe on anyone’s patent to coolers. However, you should talk to a patent attorney while still in the pre-production stage. If your cooler is going to be different from that of Yeti or any other patent out there, then it should be fairly straight forward. However, if your cooler is going to be similar to that of another manufacturer, then you will need a non-infringement opinion.
A non-infringement will set you back about $10,000, but given the recent Supreme Court decision in Halo v. Pulse, businesses really need such opinions. Not having such an opinion may be an existential event once the production begins. For startup businesses the cost of a non-infringement opinion is expensive if it does not have money coming in, but it is much better to get things taken care of now, rather than having to litigated (lots of money), having to redesign it (lots of money), having to re-tool the production (lots and lots of money), and having the company exposed to bad publicity.
Good luck!
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