Kraft coffee container suit proceeding

Procter & Gamble Co., the world's largest consumer-goods company, can proceed with its effort to ban rival Kraft Foods Inc. from using a plastic coffee container with its Maxwell House brand, a federal court said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington today threw out a lower court's ruling, which had delayed P&G's lawsuit pending U.S. patent office and court reviews that could take two years.

Kraft can renew its request with the trial court to have the case put on hold, the appeals court wrote.

Procter & Gamble said Kraft is infringing patents for its Folgers containers and sought a court order to force Kraft to remove them from store shelves.

Procter & Gamble, based in Cincinnati, began using plastic tubs in 2003. It sued Northfield, Illinois-based Kraft in August 2007, claiming the Maxwell House package infringes patents for the design of lightweight containers with resealable lids and a method for filling the container with coffee and vacuum-sealing it.

The cases are Procter & Gamble Co. v. Kraft Foods Global Inc., 07cv4413, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco) and Procter & Gamble Co. v. Kraft Goods Global Inc., 08-1105, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Washington).