Sunday, February 16, 2014

Federal Court Declares Solvay’s Patent on Cooling Agents as Invalid

Case Filed: Sep 14, 2012

Case Closed: Feb 12, 2014

Origin Case: 1:06-cv-00557

Honeywell won a verdict on a patent asserted by Solvay concerning methods for making refrigeration chemicals, which was declared invalid.

Solvay sued Honeywell in the United States District Court of Delaware alleging that the process Honeywell was using to manufacture HFC-245fa infringed certain claims of the patent.  The patent in question was: US6730817, entitled ‘Method for preparing 1,1,1,3,3-pentafluoropropane’, issued on May 04,2004 and expiring[i] by Oct 23, 2015. The patent is currently assigned[ii] to Solvay (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database).

The complaint alleged that Honeywell manufactured halogenated fluorocarbons which it believed to be infringing and asked court to enjoin infringement. The district court held that asserted claims of Solvay’s ‘817 patent were invalid. Solvay appealed the judgment of district court, which was again declared in favor of Honeywell.

Initially, Federal Court ruled that Honeywell infringed the patent but later ordered further proceedings. After various discussions and findings it affirmed the district court’s judgment of the ’817 claims as invalid.

See 2012-1660 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

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[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
[ii] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded

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