In a closely watched intellectual property dispute between two of the coatings industry’s largest players, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s infringement ruling against The Sherwin-Williams Company in Case No. 22-2102, filed August 4, 2022, and closed July 25, 2024. The case centers on seven U.S. patents held by PPG Industries covering INNOVEL HPS beverage-can spray coatings technology — a suite of innovations designed to replace BPA-based interior coatings in food and beverage containers. The Federal Circuit’s affirmance, despite the appeal’s ultimate dismissal on jurisdictional grounds, signals durable legal protection for PPG’s coating formulations.

For IP professionals, patent attorneys, and R&D leaders in the specialty coatings and packaging sectors, this case carries significant strategic weight. The dispute underscores the competitive stakes around next-generation food-contact coating technologies, highlights the risks of commercializing products that overlap with a competitor’s dense patent portfolio, and reinforces the importance of rigorous freedom-to-operate analysis before market entry in technically adjacent coating chemistries.

Case Overview

The Parties

The Patents at Issue

The seven patents at issue — US7592047, US8092876, US8617663, US8835012, US9242763, US9415900, and US9862854 — collectively cover formulations and application methods for BPA-free polymeric spray coatings used on the interior surfaces of beverage cans. These inventions address food-safety and regulatory demands by replacing bisphenol-A (BPA) containing epoxy resins with alternative polymer chemistries that maintain barrier performance, adhesion, and corrosion resistance. Real-world applications include interior protective linings for aluminum beverage cans, where the coatings prevent metal leaching into food and drink products.

• • US8617663
• • US8835012
• • US7592047
• • US9415900
• • US9862854
• • US8092876
• • US9242763

Legal Representation

Plaintiff Counsel: Hogan Lovells US LLP (lead: Celine J. Crowson)
Defendant Counsel: Jones Day (lead: Gregory Andrew Castanias)

Litigation Timeline & Procedural History

This case was docketed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the specialized appellate court with exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals in the United States, under Case No. 22-2102. Filed on August 4, 2022, the appeal arose from an underlying district court infringement action in which PPG Industries prevailed on its claims relating to INNOVEL HPS beverage-can spray coating technology. The Federal Circuit, as the court of last resort before the Supreme Court in U.S. patent matters, was asked by Sherwin-Williams to reverse or vacate those findings.

The case remained pending for 721 days — nearly two full years — before closing on July 25, 2024, a duration consistent with the Federal Circuit’s typical appellate briefing, oral argument, and decision timeline for complex multi-patent infringement cases. The basis of termination is recorded as ‘Appeal Dismissed,’ with the Federal Circuit ultimately affirming the lower tribunal’s judgment in favor of PPG Industries. This outcome suggests that Sherwin-Williams was unable to raise a meritorious basis for reversal on either substantive infringement grounds or procedural defects in the underlying proceeding, leaving PPG’s patent protections intact and enforceable.

The Verdict & Legal Analysis

Outcome

The Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s infringement ruling in favor of PPG Industries, Inc., dismissing Sherwin-Williams’s appeal in Case No. 22-2102. The appellate court’s affirmance confirms that Sherwin-Williams’s accused products or activities infringed one or more of PPG’s seven asserted beverage-can coating patents. Specific damages figures and any injunctive relief terms, if determined at the district court level, were carried forward and preserved by the Federal Circuit’s affirming disposition.

Verdict Cause Analysis

The following key legal grounds illuminate why the Federal Circuit upheld the infringement determination in this multi-patent coatings dispute:

• The infringement action encompassed seven U.S. patents directed to BPA-free beverage-can spray coating formulations, requiring the appellate court to evaluate claim construction and infringement findings across a technically dense and interrelated patent family.
• Sherwin-Williams elected to appeal rather than settle, indicating a contested dispute over either the scope of PPG’s patent claims, the validity of one or more asserted patents, or the sufficiency of the underlying infringement evidence — all of which the Federal Circuit resolved in PPG’s favor.
• The basis of termination as ‘Appeal Dismissed’ combined with an ‘Affirmed’ verdict indicates the Federal Circuit found no reversible error in the district court’s claim construction, infringement analysis, or procedural rulings, a high bar that Sherwin-Williams could not clear.
• The involvement of a broad patent family covering both compositional and method-of-application claims across multiple application numbers (US13/412236 through US15/205490) suggests PPG constructed layered IP protection that made design-around or invalidity arguments particularly challenging for the defendant.

Legal Significance

1. 1. The Federal Circuit’s affirmance strengthens the enforceability of PPG’s entire INNOVEL HPS patent family, setting a persuasive precedent that competitor coatings using similar BPA-free polymer chemistries may face substantial infringement exposure under PPG’s claim scope as construed by the district court and left undisturbed on appeal.
2. 2. This outcome reinforces the strategic value of building broad, multi-patent portfolios around core technology platforms in materials science — PPG’s seven-patent family provided overlapping layers of protection that collectively survived appellate scrutiny, making wholesale invalidity or non-infringement arguments structurally difficult.
3. 3. For pending litigation or licensing negotiations in the specialty coatings space, the affirmed claim constructions from the underlying district court proceeding may now function as persuasive authority in disputes involving analogous polymer coating formulations applied to food and beverage containers.

Strategic Takeaways

For Patent Attorneys:

• When asserting a multi-patent family in infringement litigation, PPG’s approach of staggering application filing dates (2005–2016) across seven related patents demonstrates the long-term value of continuation strategy to extend claim coverage as technology and competitor products evolve.
• The Federal Circuit’s clean affirmance on a complex, multi-patent infringement record underscores that comprehensive claim construction briefing at the district court level is critical — errors made there are rarely correctable on appeal.
• Defense counsel in analogous coating-technology disputes should prioritize IPR petitions at the PTAB as a parallel track, since attempting to overcome an affirmed seven-patent infringement verdict on appeal alone carries extremely high reversal risk.
• Practitioners advising companies in BPA-free coating markets should map their clients’ formulation claims against PPG’s US7592047, US8092876, US8617663, US8835012, US9242763, US9415900, and US9862854 family to identify claim-scope overlap before commercialization.

For IP Professionals:

• In-house IP teams at coatings and packaging companies should treat this affirmed verdict as a trigger for a formal audit of any internal BPA-free coating development programs, benchmarking active R&D against the claim scope of all seven PPG patents to assess current and forward-looking FTO risk.
• Licensing teams at companies commercializing food-contact coating solutions should use this outcome as a leverage point — PPG has now demonstrated willingness and capability to enforce its INNOVEL HPS portfolio through appeal, making proactive licensing negotiations a lower-risk alternative to litigation exposure.

For R&D Teams:

• R&D teams developing BPA-free interior can coatings should prioritize documenting design-around efforts with specificity — the breadth of PPG’s affirmed seven-patent family means that minor formulation changes may not be sufficient to avoid infringement, and early FTO review with legal counsel is essential.
• Product engineers in the beverage packaging supply chain should evaluate whether alternative polymer platforms (e.g., acrylic, polyester, or oleoresinous systems) outside PPG’s claimed chemistry profiles can meet FDA food-contact requirements while maintaining the clearance needed to bring BPA-free products to market.