{"id":106,"date":"2018-04-11T16:20:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T20:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/?p=106"},"modified":"2018-04-18T13:50:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T17:50:53","slug":"ge-opens-a-second-front-in-patent-fight-with-vestas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/2018\/04\/11\/ge-opens-a-second-front-in-patent-fight-with-vestas\/","title":{"rendered":"GE Opens a Second Front in Patent Fight with Vestas"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>GE filed petitions on Friday to challenge the validity of a pair of Vestas patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Those patents were asserted by Vestas against GE in related patent litigation in federal court.<\/li>\n<li>GE and Vestas are now likely to continue their patent fight in two forums: the federal court hearing patent infringement claims between the parties and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board hearing GE\u2019s validity challenges to the Vestas patents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>General Electric Co. has challenged a pair of patents owned by Vestas Wind Systems A\/S at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. In petitions for <em>inter partes<\/em> review filed last Friday, GE alleges that the Vestas patents are invalid because they merely claim as inventions what was already known in the field of wind turbine technology. With the parties already engaged in litigation in U.S federal courts, GE\u2019s move opens a second front in the ongoing patent fight with Vestas.<\/p>\n<p>GE initially sued Vestas in July 2017, alleging that Vestas infringes GE\u2019s U.S Patent No. 6,921,985. In November, GE <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/2017\/11\/21\/general-electric-expands-patent-fight-against-vestas\/\"><u>expanded the lawsuit<\/u> <\/a>by adding another patent \u2013 GE\u2019s U.S. Patent No. 7,629,705 \u2013 that GE asserted Vestas also infringes. Both of GE\u2019s asserted patents are directed to technology for connecting wind turbines to power grids.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nVestas <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/2017\/11\/27\/vestas-fires-back-in-ge-wind-turbine-lawsuit\/\"><u>answered<\/u><\/a>\u00a0GE\u2019s allegations in November by denying that it infringed GE\u2019s patents and further arguing that GE committed inequitable conduct when obtaining one of the asserted patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. If substantiated, the inequitable conduct charge would render the relevant GE patent unenforceable against Vestas. A few weeks later, Vestas <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/2018\/01\/03\/vestas-adds-patent-infringement-claim-against-ge-in-wind-turbine-litigation\/\"><u>filed counterclaims in the lawsuit<\/u>\u00a0<\/a>to assert that GE infringes a pair of Vestas patents. Specifically, Vestas alleged that GE infringes U.S. Patent Nos. 7,102,247 and 7,859,125; both of these patents are directed to technology for connecting and controlling wind turbines on a power grid.<\/p>\n<p>GE\u2019s petitions for <em>inter partes<\/em> review filed Friday challenge the validity of the \u2018247 Patent and the \u2018125 Patent asserted by Vestas against GE. Third parties may challenge granted patents by returning to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to request a review of the patent\u2019s validity. These reviews are conducted by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and typically involve a challenger bringing evidence before the Board to show that the patented invention was previously known in the technological field. Since patents can only be granted for inventions that are both new and non-obvious over existing technology, a challenger that is successful in demonstrating to the Board that the claimed inventions were described in previous publications can have the patent declared invalid.<\/p>\n<p>In the petitions, GE argues that the inventions claimed in the Vestas patents did not qualify for patent protection because they were not new and non-obvious. For example, GE describes the claimed invention of the \u2018125 Patent as the \u201cthe use of multiple brake resistors to dissipate power\u201d in the electrical connection between a wind turbine and the grid. GE alleges that such use was disclosed in a Japanese patent that pre-dates the \u2018125 Patent by nearly a decade. If the Japanese patent in fact teaches the claimed invention of the \u2018125 Patent, then the \u2018125 Patent may be declared invalid by the Board.<\/p>\n<p>GE and Vestas are now likely to continue their patent fight in two forums: the federal court hearing the patent infringement claims between the parties and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board hearing GE\u2019s validity challenges against the Vestas patents. Vestas will have an opportunity to respond to GE\u2019s allegations, and a decision whether the Board will hear those challenges is expected no later than October 2018.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GE filed petitions on Friday to challenge the validity of a pair of Vestas patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Those patents were asserted by Vestas against GE in related patent litigation in federal court. GE and Vestas are now likely to continue their patent fight in two forums: the federal court hearing &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/2018\/04\/11\/ge-opens-a-second-front-in-patent-fight-with-vestas\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;GE Opens a Second Front in Patent Fight with Vestas&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,22,6,7,24,17],"ppma_author":[122],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-general-electric","tag-justus-getty","tag-patent","tag-patent-infringement","tag-vestas","tag-wind"],"authors":[{"term_id":122,"user_id":226,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jlgetty","display_name":"Justus Getty","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2017\/11\/gettyjustus-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/greenip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}