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.
* 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.