Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Rubbermaid Commercial Products Hits Everstrong Commercial Products




On Thursday, October 18, 2012, Rubbermaid Commercial Products (plaintiff) recorded a suit against Everstrong Commercial Products (defendant) for patent infringement in the U.S District Court of Northern Illinois (case no. 1:12-cv-08364).

Rubbermaid Commercial Products features a variety of commercial cleaning, organizing, recycling and transporting products, including utility carts, commercial janitorial supplies, waste bins, recycle trash cans and Rubbermaid microfiber mops. Everstrong Commercial Products is a manufacturer and exporter of products for the janitorial, hospitality and health care industries.

The patent US7571831 involved in this suit is currently assigned* to Rubbermaid Commercial Products (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database). The patent entitled Mop Bucket System With Wave Reduction Capability was issued on August 11, 2009 and expires[i] on Sept. 16, 2025.

According to the complaint, the defendant’s product combination bucket and wringer allegedly infringe the patent US7571831. A combination mop bucket and wringer unit uses a thin walled plastic mop bucket with a cap-like wringer body which fits securely over the top of the bucket to form a unitary structure. The combination bucket and wringer is shown in Fig.1.

Fig.1 combination bucket and wringer

The plaintiffs in the past had filed 5 suits and 4 of them are closed. If you are interested in knowing about the cases, please contact us.

For more details, visit MaxVal-IP and subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.




* Patent Assignment Alerts are automated email alerts sent to you when assignments relating to target applications/patents/entities of interest are recorded.

[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.


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