1 / 13

Linde Air Products Co. v. Graver Tank & Manufacturing ( 1950)

Linde Air Products Co. v. Graver Tank & Manufacturing ( 1950). Doctrine of Equivalents. Outline. Players Welding Claims of Infringement Rulings and Appeals Overall Impact. Players. Linde Air Products

audrey-salinas
Download Presentation

Linde Air Products Co. v. Graver Tank & Manufacturing ( 1950)

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Linde Air Products Co. v. Graver Tank & Manufacturing (1950) Doctrine of Equivalents Allan Woodworth | UC Berkeley | Mechanical Engineering | IEOR 190G | Fall 2008 |

  2. Outline • Players • Welding • Claims of Infringement • Rulings and Appeals • Overall Impact Allan Woodworth

  3. Players • Linde Air Products • Numerous products such as the USA’s first oxygen liquidation plant and hydrostatic forklift. • Grover Tank Co. • Makes tanks (the kind that hold things such as air or oil) • Lincoln Electric Co. • Makes flux Allan Woodworth

  4. Welding • What is welding? • A process that joins materials (usually metals) through coalescence. • Generally done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material that cools to become a strong joint. Allan Woodworth

  5. Metal Arc Welding Allan Woodworth

  6. Flux • Flux protects the weld from oxygen and other gases. • As the electrode melts the flux disintegrates giving off protective vapors and creating a protective molten slag. Allan Woodworth

  7. Patent • Linde owned a patent for an electronic welding process (2034960) • 29 Claims Allan Woodworth

  8. Dispute • Linde sued Graver Co. and others for infringing the patent on their welding composition and process. • Graver Co. said we’re not infringing because our flux uses manganese instead of magnesium. Magnesium Manganese Allan Woodworth

  9. Dispute Continued • The patent claims the use of an alkaline earth metal silicate which includes Magnesium Silicate but not Magnesium silicate. Allan Woodworth

  10. District Court Ruling • District Court found “that the Lincoln Electric Co. made, and the other petitioners used and sold, a flux substantially identical with that set forth in the valid composition claims of the patent in suit, and which could be made by a person skilled in the art merely by following its teachings. The petitioners introduced no evidence to show that their accused flux was derived either from the prior art, by independent experiment, or from any source other than the teachings of the patent in suit. The court found infringement of each of the four claims, and concluded that the respondent was entitled to a permanent injunction against future infringement and to an accounting for profits and damages…” Allan Woodworth

  11. Appeals Court • The case was sent to an appeals court which agreed with the decision made by the district court. • The case was then sent to the 7th district court which actually strengthened the infringement case claiming even more of the claims were infringed than originally ruled by the court. • Finally, the case was sent to the Supreme Court and upheld claiming that though the “infringement was not literal” there was still infringement based on the “Doctrine of Equivalents.” Allan Woodworth

  12. Doctrine of Equivalents • It performs substantially the same function • in substantially the same way • to yield substantially the same result. • then it is EQUIVALENT Allan Woodworth

  13. Questions? Allan Woodworth

More Related