Court Denies Pergo Injunction Against Faus

Dalton, GA, November 14, 2005--The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina has denied the application by Pergo, Inc. and a related Swedish affiliate for a preliminary injunction against Faus Group, Inc. and its parent corporation. The court found that among other inadequacies in Pergo’s application, that the Pergo entities “have failed to carry their burden of showing a likelihood of success on the merits” and that Faus has raised “substantial questions as to the validity” of the patent relied upon by Pergo in its application. In January of 2005, during the Surfaces flooring trade show in Las Vegas, Pergo filed a suit against Faus and issued a press release claiming that Faus’s FastTrim five-in-one molding products infringe one or more patents held by Pergo on its Simple Solutions four-in-one molding products. Faus responded that it would defend the case vigorously and that it contended, among other things, that Pergo’s molding patents are invalid. The Court ruled on November 7 that, at this state of the case, Faus has successfully raised substantial questions about the validity of the patent relied upon by Pergo to support its request for injunctive relief and that Pergo therefore has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its patent infringement claims.