Daimler loses European urea injection patent, U.S. could be next
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Urea injection systems for diesel vehicles might soon be less expensive thanks to a recent ruling in a European patent case. Daimler was part owner of a patent covering selective catalytic reduction systems for diesel engines. The SCR systems use urea injected into the exhaust stream along with a special catalytic converter to transform NOx emissions into nitrogen and water. The original patent was filed by British supplier Johnson Matthey with later filings from Daimler and Umicore.
Daimler eventually took a partial ownership stake in the Johnson Matthey patent that was granted first in Europe and later in the U.S. Umicore, which makes catalytic converters including the SCR units used by Mercedes, challenged the patent and the European patent office overturned it on the grounds that as written, it only covered a particular configuration of parts rather than the concept as well as the presence of prior art. A U.S. challenge is still pending, but Daimler won't be able to collect any royalties on the technology in Europe and may abandon hopes of doing so here as well.
[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kumar 4:49PM (6/22/2009)
Wow, I'll be following this one closely. Hopefully it has a huge impact reducing the cost of adapting the engine to the us market, involving a urea system for larger engines like the current Subaru diesel.
If it means a diesel is $500 more instead of $2000 more than it's gas counterpart, we'll see a lot more diesels stateside soon.
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JonnyD 10:04AM (7/07/2009)
Probably not. Comparing the claims of the issued EPO Patent, EP1054722, and the corresponding US Patent 6,805,849, the US Patent ties the system to a specific catalyst composition whereas the EPO claims do not. It would be much harder to invalidate the US Patent (and there is much less motivation to).
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