Toyota's long hybrid patent fight with Paice continues in court
2010 Toyota Prius – Click above for high-res image gallery
Toyota's legal battle to over making and selling the Hybrid Synergy Drive has a long history. Toyota has fought with both Solomon Technologies and Paice LLC over the gasoline-electric technology. In 2008, Toyota was ordered to pay Paice LLC $4.3 million for patent infringement, based on a cost of $25 per infringing car (defined at the second-gen Prius, the Toyota Highlander hybrid and the Lexus RX400H). But that didn't end the problem. Instead, this past September, Paice issued a new suit trying to get U.S. Customs to stop all of Toyota's hybrids at the border.
Paice believes that Toyota is using Paice technology in its hybrids and a court agreed in the $4.3 million settlement. Paice – Power Assisted Internal Combustion Engine – was started in 1992 by Russian immigrant Alex Severinsky. In 1994, Severinsky was awarded a patent for a microprocessor that coordinated power flows in both an ICE and an electric motor. Severinsky's patent expires in 2012 and Paice wants Toyota's imports halted until then. But, a semi-related legal decision involving eBay issued in May of 2006 may impact the Toyota situation because Paice, which does not make any hybrid cars, does not meet the new four-factor test that decision created. The lawsuit trying to get the vehicles stopped at the border is simply a new chip Paice is trying to gain in the ongoing fight. Learn more at Law.com.
[Source: Law.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mike 1:07PM (11/05/2009)
This is f'ing ridiculous.
We seriously need patent reform !!
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Serge 2:55PM (11/05/2009)
So Toyota is paying a royalty of $98 on every hybrid it sells in the U.S. to a company primarily consisting of lawyers and auto-industry retirees. Now, they want to prevent Toyota from importing any of its hybrids, presumably in an effort to get a better royalty rates. Nice, just nice. I wonder why Toyota didn't fight the original infringement case harder.
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Throwback 3:49PM (11/05/2009)
Perhaps because they knew they had a weak case?
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Dan Frederiksen 8:25AM (11/11/2009)
the patent systems just has to go. doesn't matter what the merits are in this case, the patent system is evil. it doesn't serve to protect the little inventor, only serves lawyers.
the nimh chevron patent situation alone is evidence that the patent system is evil.
no reform will work.
with the patent system we spend so much time being defensive that much less gets developed. big corporations get patents just to be in a stale mate position with others in a joint patent infringement situation. it's a hindrance to progress, not an aid.
WAKE UP PEOPLE
there was an experiment to test if progress was faster with or without patents and it was much faster without patents.
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