CHICAGO — A federal jury has found that Sears and supplier Apex knowingly violated a patent with its Craftsman locking wrench. LoggerHead Tools, a father and son enterprise, filed a complaint five years ago over the product’s resemblance to its Bionic Wrench, which Sears ordered from LoggerHead from 2009 until the 2012 launch of Craftsman’s Max Access Locking Wrench. Now Dan Brown Sr. and his son have been awarded $6 million in damages for the copying of their product. Stanley Black & Decker bought the Craftsman line this year, but the tools are still sold at Sears stores.
“You don’t often see David in the David vs. Goliath battles win,” Dan Brown Jr. told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s a huge win for small businesses, small inventors and people who think if they have a great idea they should be able to bring it to the market and not be crushed by a corporate giant.” The Browns’ lawyer, Paul Skiermont, observed that small entrepreneurs, when they have the means to pursue large corporations at all, often settle intellectual property disputes for “pennies on the dollar.”
