Our Patent Case Summaries provide a weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Ridge Corp., et al. v. Kirk NationaLease Co., et al.
No. 2025-1254 (Fed. Cir. (S.D. Ohio) July 13, 2026). Opinion by Mayer, joined by Dyk and Taranto.
Ridge sued various entities for infringement of a patent directed to “an insulated overhead door” and moved for a preliminary injunction. The district court granted the motion and enjoined the defendants from, among other things, manufacturing and selling a door that infringes the patent. As part of its analysis, the district court construed three claim terms and concluded that Ridge established a strong likelihood of success on the merits.
On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed, ruling that the district court abused its discretion because the “defendants established that, under the proper construction of three separate claim limitations, there is a substantial question regarding whether the Ridge plaintiffs can succeed on the merits of their infringement action.”
First, as to a claim limitation requiring that the overhead door include a “panel being flexible along the entire length of the panel so as to be capable of approximating the curvature of curved tracks,” the Federal Circuit ruled that the Ridge plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed in establishing that the accused door has a panel that is “flexible along its entire length.” Second, the Federal Circuit ruled that the defendants raised “a substantial question regarding whether the accused door can meet the claim limitation requiring that ‘foam insulating material form[] the second outermost surface of the door.’” Third, as to the term “insulated overhead door,” the court concluded that the claim language “is most reasonably interpreted to mean a door with insulating properties that make it suitable for cold storage applications.” Under that interpretation, the defendants raised “a substantial question regarding whether the accused door can qualify as the claimed ‘insulated overhead door.’”
For those reasons, the Federal Circuit ruled that the district court erred in determining that Ridge had established a likelihood of success on the merits of their infringement claim. The Federal Circuit also rejected the district court’s conclusion that the irreparable injury component of the preliminary injunction calculus was satisfied. Ridge’s assertion of irreparable harm “was speculative at best.” Based on these and other determinations, the Federal Circuit reversed the grant of a preliminary injunction and remanded.