July 2018 – Duane Morris Green IP

GE and Vestas are now one year into patent litigation that has the potential to impact the U.S. wind turbine market. The parties reportedly control more than 80% of the market between them.
The patents at issue claim inventions in the field of controlling wind turbine generators. GE and Vestas are the preeminent patent owners in this field.

This week marks one year since GE filed a patent lawsuit against its main rival in the U.S. wind turbine industry, the Danish company Vestas A/S. In the past year, GE has modified its patent infringement allegations; Vestas has denied infringement, alleged inequitable conduct by GE when obtaining the patents, and counter-sued GE for infringing Vestas’ patents; and both parties have filed challenges to each other’s asserted patents with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (see here and here). The litigation in federal court was also recently put on hold to await the outcome of those challenges at the PTAB. Continue reading “GE, Vestas Battling in a Technological Field They Dominate”

While defending against allegations of trade secret misappropriation, EVelozcity attempted to disqualify part of Faraday’s legal team for a conflict of interest. That attempt fell short when the court ruled that EVelozcity had not shared confidential information with the allegedly-conflicted attorneys.

As discussed in our previous post, the artificial intelligence electric vehicle developer Faraday&Future, Inc. filed a lawsuit in January against rival startup EVelozcity, Inc. for misappropriation of trade secrets. Several senior members of the EVelozcity team were formerly employed by Faraday, and Faraday accused those former employees of stealing trade secrets on their way out the door. EVelozcity responded to these accusations with two motions to the court. Continue reading “EVelozcity Loses Bid to Disqualify Part of Faraday’s Legal Team”