Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. et al.

I'll research this case across PTAB, ITC, and district court sources.

Let me dig into the district court case, the judges, and the related IPR filings.

Now let me pin down the IPR petition's grounds, the institution decision, and the counter-litigation.

Case Overview & Background

A note on framing before the substance: IPR2024-01401 is not itself an infringement action — it is a PTAB inter partes review petition. The "plaintiff/defendant" labels in the case metadata track the PTAB caption (Klein as petitioner), which inverts the alignment in the actual infringement suits. In the litigation, Milwaukee is the plaintiff/complainant and Klein is the defendant/respondent. The IPR is the third front in a two-way, all-operating-company patent war over modular tool storage.

The parties. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation (Brookfield, WI) is a manufacturer and worldwide marketer of power tools, hand tools, and storage products, including its PACKOUT™ modular storage system — the asserted patents' commercial embodiment. Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. (Herzliya, Israel) is an Israeli plastics/resin products manufacturer that co-owns the patents by assignment with Milwaukee and manufactures some of the PACKOUT articles Milwaukee relies on for the ITC domestic-industry showing. Klein Tools, Inc. (Lincolnshire, IL) is a hand-tool and storage manufacturer that sells the accused MODbox™ line. There is no NPE/PAE, university, or aggregator anywhere in this dispute — it is competitor-versus-competitor, and notably a two-way one: Klein separately asserted its own patents (glow fish tape and safety helmet systems) against Milwaukee in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1442 and D. Del. C.A. No. 1:25-cv-00143-JLH, obtaining a limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist order against Milwaukee on claim 6 of U.S. Patent No. 12,187,573 in the Commission's November 4, 2026 final determination. Each side now holds an exclusion order against the other.

The technology and patents. The accused products are components of Klein's MODbox™ system — rolling, medium, and small toolboxes, full- and half-width component boxes, a tool bag, and a cooler — marketed as "a modular System with locking components" allowing users to interchange and stack units vertically and side-to-side. The patents-in-campaign (all sharing one specification, the same four inventors — Brunner, Squiers, Hoppe, and Hyma — and priority to provisional 62/330,334, filed May 2, 2016) are: U.S. 11,794,952 ("Utility Assembly and Coupling Mechanism," issued Oct. 24, 2023, 23 claims) — claims a container assembly in which a female coupler (recesses bounded by sidewalls, a back wall, and a rib) on one container's lid receives a male coupler (tongue/projection) on the bottom of a second, retained by a toggle locking latch so stacked boxes detachably lock together; U.S. 11,365,026 (issued June 21, 2022, 11 claims) — the parent-family coupling mechanism; and U.S. 11,952,167 (issued April 9, 2024) — adds corner bumpers and a dimensional limitation that the second container be approximately one-half the width of the first, aimed at half-width boxes stacked on full-width units.

Procedural posture, and why it matters. Milwaukee and Keter sued Klein in N.D. Ill. (1:24-cv-04928, filed June 13, 2024, assigned to Judge Andrea R. Wood, Mag. J. Jeffrey T. Gilbert) and filed the companion ITC complaint; the district court stayed the case on August 15, 2024 pending the ITC investigation (Dkt. 16), a stay that remains in place. Klein filed IPR2024-01401 on September 17, 2024, challenging all 23 claims of the '952 patent on §103 grounds built principally on Burchia and Metabowerke (with Lafragette, Chen, Lin, and Bensman in various combinations). The Board instituted, finding a reasonable likelihood as to at least claims 9 and 17 and calling the merits "particularly strong." Milwaukee sought Director Review; on June 9, 2025, Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart granted review, vacated institution, and denied institution (Paper 22), holding the panel misweighed Fintiv factors 1 and 4 — the ITC was unlikely to stay, had already completed a full evidentiary hearing, and would issue its final determination roughly six months before the Board's statutory deadline, with the same parties, same claims, and overlapping prior art — and that the factor 6 merits did not outweigh those concerns. The case is notable on three axes: (1) it is a rare Director Review vacatur of a merits panel's institution decision, and it came just months after the February 2025 rescission of the 2022 Fintiv memo, effectively departing from the Board's POSCO approach to parallel ITC proceedings; (2) it was not isolated — the Director/Deputy Director denied five Klein petitions across two rounds, including IPR2024-01400 ('026), IPR2025-01018 ('167), and three September 12, 2025 denials, closing the PTAB as an invalidity forum for the family and leaving the ITC as the sole live validity adjudicator; and (3) that bet did not pay off for Klein — the CALJ's August 1, 2025 FID found a §337 violation on all three patents, and the Commission's September 29, 2026 determination affirmed violation as to the '026 and '952 patents, issued an LEO and CDO against Klein, and set an 18% bond, remanding only the '167 patent. The upshot for the stayed Illinois case is that Klein's invalidity defenses were largely aired and rejected in a forum that cannot invalidate patents, while validity remains formally unresolved for the district court.

Sourcing caveats. The June 9, 2025 Director Review decision (Paper 22) is well documented and reproduced on USPTO's site, as is the ITC's final determination (91 FR, Oct. 2, 2026) and the FID. Board paper numbers for the institution decision appear inconsistently in the record (cited as both Paper 16 and Paper 17 across the Director's decision and Klein's briefing); I have not verified the precise institution date, the full ground-by-ground mapping in the petition, or the current post-remand status of the '167 patent at the Commission (target date extended to Nov. 16, 2026). I also could not independently confirm the specific docket entry for the N.D. Ill. stay beyond Dkt. 16, and I have no reliable market-share data for PACKOUT versus MODbox — claims about relative market position would be speculation.

I'll research this case and its parallel proceedings now.

Key facts are emerging. Let me dig into the district court docket, the earlier dismissed case, and current appellate posture.

Now let me pin down the IPR institution decision, the '167 IPR, and current appellate/ITC posture as of today.

I'll research the counsel of record for Klein Tools across the related proceedings.

Let me pin down the district court and ITC counsel for Klein Tools as plaintiff/complainant.

Threshold point on "plaintiff(s)"

In IPR2024-01401 itself, the party on the plaintiff side is Klein Tools, Inc. — but its role is petitioner (Milwaukee/Keter are patent owner/respondent). Klein Tools' PTAB counsel of record in this proceeding is Quinn Emanuel. Klein Tools is separately the plaintiff/complainant in the parallel infringement track arising from the same accused products (D. Del. and ITC), where it is represented by Kirkland & Ellis + Richards, Layton & Finger. I've listed both, since the question references "plaintiff(s) in this patent infringement case."

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1. Counsel of record for Klein Tools in IPR2024-01401 (PTAB)

Source: Paper 22, Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Elec. Tool Corp., IPR2024-01400/-01401 (PTAB June 9, 2025) (Acting Director review, denying institution), which lists "For PETITIONER" counsel — the terminating paper in this case, so it is the authoritative counsel-of-record snapshot. (uspto.gov PDF)

Service address of record: KleinTools_IPR@kirkland.com appears on Klein's patent-owner-side filings (see below) — note the PTAB docket for -01401 lists the Quinn Emanuel emails (jimglass@, josephmilowic@, briannestraka@quinnemanuel.com).

2. Counsel for Klein Tools as plaintiff/complainant in the parallel infringement actions

These are the cases the Fintiv analysis in -01401 turned on: Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp., No. 1:25-cv-00143 (D. Del., filed Feb. 4, 2025) and In re Certain Glow Fish Tape Systems, Safety Helmet Systems, and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-1442 (ITC, instituted Mar. 19, 2025, 90 Fed. Reg. 12790).

Kirkland & Ellis LLP (lead / trial counsel)

Sources: D. Del. docket entries 7–8 (PHV motion and order, Feb. 12–13, 2025, Judge Jennifer L. Hall) and the ITC First Amended Complaint's "Counsel for Complainant" block (May 5, 2025).

Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A. (Delaware local counsel)

In-house

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Caveats

• Do not conflate the two firms. Milwaukee/Keter's PTAB counsel is Morgan, Lewis & Bockius (Dion M. Bregman lead; Jason C. White, Scott D. Sherwin, David P. Bernstein, Alexander B. Stein). Morgan Lewis also appears in the D. Del./N.D. Ill. dockets on the Milwaukee side, so any docket-scrape that lists "Arovas, Rabinowitz, Kane, Dudash, Farnan" together on a Klein-v-Milwaukee docket is an aggregate of both sides' appearances — I have filtered to the Klein-side entries only.
• Quinn Emanuel vs. Kirkland for Klein is real, not an error: Quinn Emanuel (Nelson, Straka) is Klein's counsel defending the Milwaukee-initiated N.D. Ill. suits (1:24-cv-04928) and prosecuting Klein's IPRs; Kirkland prosecutes Klein's affirmative D. Del. and ITC cases.
• Not verified: any sealed PHV papers, the complete attorney list on the D. Del. docket after March 2025 (the public docket snapshot I could reach stops there), and whether additional Kirkland associates entered appearances in the ITC. No source I found indicates counsel changes at PTAB before termination on June 9, 2025.

Primary sources: Paper 22 in IPR2024-01400/-01401 (June 9, 2025); D. Del. 1:25-cv-00143 docket entries 1, 7, 8 (Feb. 2025); ITC 337-TA-1442 First Amended Complaint (May 5, 2025) and 90 Fed. Reg. 12790 (Mar. 19, 2025); PTAB § 42.10(b) POAs and mandatory notices in PGR2025-00048 and IPR2025-01018.

I'll research the counsel of record on both the PTAB docket and the parallel district court litigation.

Let me pull the PTAB docket specifics for IPR2024-01401 and the district court dockets where these parties appear.

Let me find the actual IPR2024-01401 docket filings (mandatory notices, pro hac vice) to pin exact counsel roles, and confirm Keter's separate representation.

Bottom line

IPR2024-01401 has no "defendants." It is a PTAB inter partes review in which Klein Tools is Petitioner and Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. are the Patent Owners (the responding party). All counsel of record for the responding side were from a single firm — Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP — with no separate Keter-only counsel appearing.

Below are the attorneys whose appearances are grounded in the PTAB papers, followed by (for completeness) the counsel on the parallel infringement suits, since the "defendant" in those cases is Klein, not Milwaukee/Keter.

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Counsel of record for Patent Owners (Milwaukee + Keter) — IPR2024-01401

Grounded in: Paper 22 in IPR2024-01400 & -01401 (June 9, 2025), whose Patent Owner service block lists Bregman, White and Bernstein for Morgan Lewis — https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf; and Patent Owners' Mandatory Notices / Sherwin PHV notice in the sibling matter IPR2025-01018, which identify the same lead/back-up designations and confirm Sherwin's PHV recognition in -01400/-01401.

Caveats I want to flag rather than paper over:

• I could not retrieve the Patent Owner's Power of Attorney or the original § 42.8(b)(3) mandatory notices filed in IPR2024-01401 itself (Sept.–Oct. 2024). The role assignments above are reconstructed from the Director Review decision's counsel block and the firm's filings in the closely related IPRs (same patent family, same parties, same counsel). Roles may have shifted slightly between the 2024 filing and the June 2025 Director Review.
• No separate counsel for Keter appears in any PTAB paper I found; Milwaukee and Keter filed jointly as "Patent Owners" through Morgan Lewis. I found no Keter-specific firm.
• No in-house counsel for Milwaukee or Keter is identified in the public PTAB filings retrieved (the only in-house name in this family's papers is on the Klein side — Robert Vechiola, EVP & General Counsel of Klein Tools, on Klein's PGR power of attorney). Do not assume a Milwaukee in-house lawyer of record.
• Maria E. Doukas and Liya Levin (Morgan Lewis, Chicago) appear on Milwaukee/Keter's ITC and N.D. Ill. teams but I did not confirm them as counsel of record on the IPR2024-01401 docket.

Related Morgan Lewis ITC team (same client, different forum — not PTAB record)

In ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1409 (the parallel investigation that drove the Fintiv denial), the FID of Aug. 1, 2025 lists for Complainants Milwaukee/Keter: Eric S. Namrow, Stephanie L. Roberts, Kandis C. Gibson, Calvin M. Brien, Emily K. Burge (Washington, DC) and Jason C. White, Scott D. Sherwin, Maria E. Doukas, Liya Levin (Chicago).

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Counterparties (for alignment — these are Klein's counsel, not the responding side)

• Petitioner Klein Tools, Inc. in IPR2024-01401: James M. Glass, Joseph Milowic III, Brianne M. Straka — Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP (per Paper 22 caption).
• Klein as defendant in the N.D. Ill. infringement suit (Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. v. Klein Tools, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-04928): Quinn Emanuel (Straka, David A. Nelson) filed the stay motion and status reports; Gregory S. Arovas of Kirkland & Ellis appeared for Klein in the later-filed No. 1:25-cv-04689. In the ITC, Klein's counsel were S. Alex Lasher, Brian L. Saunders (Quinn Emanuel, DC) and David A. Nelson, Brianne M. Straka (Quinn Emanuel, Chicago).
• Milwaukee as defendant in Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp., No. 1:25-cv-00143 (D. Del., stayed under 28 U.S.C. § 1659): filings signed by Amy Dudash; I could not verify her firm affiliation from the sources retrieved, so I am not asserting it.

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Practical note for your analysis

Because institution was denied on Director Review, the Morgan Lewis PTAB team's work product in -01401 is confined to the Patent Owner Preliminary Response, the Fintiv/discretionary-denial briefing, the Director Review request (Paper 19) and the opposition to Klein's authorized response (Paper 20). The substantive invalidity fight — where the same Morgan Lewis team (White, Sherwin, Doukas) sat opposite Quinn Emanuel — played out in the ITC, resulting in the ALJ's Aug. 1, 2025 finding of a § 337 violation on the '952 patent, now on Commission review (Commission review notice dated Jan. 21/26, 2026).