THE IP PATENT PRIMER ‘Tis an ill patent wind that blew for GE wind turbine

The Siemens Gamesa v GE patent case has been widely discussed in the wind industry and has raised important questions about patent law and Intellectual Property rights.

Last year, a jury found that GE’s Haliade-X wind turbine infringed Siemens’ patent. The patent protects a structural support arrangement which allows the wind turbine to be larger, handle increased loads and generate more energy. The jury found a reasonable royalty for the infringement was $30,000 per megawatt. Judge John Young then heard arguments regarding whether to order an injunction against GE’s infringing acts.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court in eBay v Merck Exchange found that courts must apply a four-factor test to justify issuing an injunction, the same test traditionally applied by courts of equity. The Supreme Court made it clear that ordering an injunction in a patent case shouldn’t be treated any differently than any other action. Prior to the eBay decision, injunctions in patent cases were typically ordered. If you infringed a patent, you could expect an injunction against any further infringement.

In the eBay case, four factors that were considered were: has the patentee suffered irreparable injury? are remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, inadequate to compensate for the injury? considering the balance of hardships between the parties, is a remedy in equity warranted? and will the public interest be disserved by a permanent injunction?

It’s important to note that after the eBay decision, many in the IP world thought that injunctions would be almost impossible to obtain. The four factors are a high hurdle, and it was thought that money would compensate for most injuries. However, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit—the only appeals court that handles patent cases—issued decisions further defining what is required for an injunction, and admonished courts not to ignore the fundamental right of patent owners to exclude others. Although not as certain as pre-eBay injunctions, injunctions are still readily available for patent owners against infringers.

The Siemens Court considered these factors and the parties’ arguments and issued an injunction … well, it sort of issued an injunction. This is where things get interesting.

The court provided carveouts, which allow parties to exclude certain claim or remedies from arbitration clauses. GE had two projects, the Vineyard Wind project, which was being manufactured, and the Ocean Wind project, which was due to begin, with the contracts having been negotiated. The court allowed GE to continue with these products because the Judge thought it was in the public’s interest to not delay wind turbine development. For the Vineyards Wind project, GE was ordered to pay the $30,000 royalty. With the Ocean Wind project, they were ordered to put 100% of any profits into a trust until the court could determine a reasonable royalty for that project.

Normally, an injunction enjoins all actions, there are no carveouts. But this court was concerned about the public interest and the need for alternative energy and didn’t want to slow the development of these projects.

The judge clearly showed his concern for climate crisis in a further order issued on Feb. 2, 2023, establishing the Ocean Wind royalty. The judge began his written opinion by chastising both parties for putting corporate interests over the public interest. He encouraged both parties to cross-license each other’s patents for the global public interest. The judge clearly used his concern about the public interest as a factor in issuing the injunction and creating the carveouts that allowed an injunction of all future infringing projects, while allowed these two to continue. Siemens wanted the Court to triple the jury-determined royalty, and GE wanted it left alone. The judge split the difference and doubled the royalty, setting it at $60,000 per megawatt.

It will be interesting to see what happens on appeal. The Appeals Court has made it clear that it is in the public’s interest to have a strong patent system and that injunctions support this public interest. Will the Appeals Court allow a Solomonlike splitting of the baby to support two different public interests? Will this be a future trend? All I know for certain is that patents are at the heart of this decision and once again show their value in protecting innovation. Without them, there would have been no fight, and maybe no incentive to advance this much needed technology.

-Bill Honaker

Bill Honaker has been an intellectual property attorney for more than 30 years, helping businesses—from Fortune 100 firms to individual entrepreneurs—protect their patents, trademarks and copyrights. A former Patent Office Examiner, he is a partner with Dickinson Wright, PLLC. He notes that he is especially good at keeping clients out of court. He can be contacted at whonaker@dickinson-wright.com, tel. 248-433-7381.

special application (SPA) optical fiber cable. One or more additional layers of metallic tape and jackets may be added to the outermost layer of the SPA cable. The tape and jacket layers may have different thicknesses and may be made from different materials to optimize protection against man-made objects or otherwise naturally occurring materials in deep water environments, such as fish aggregation devices (FADs).

Cutting station and method for automatically cutting cable elements to a specific length

U.S. Patent No.: 11,529,662

Patent date: Dec. 13, 2022 Filed: April 30, 2020

Assignee: Leoni Bordnetz Systeme GmbH, Germany

Inventors: Markus Achinger, Jessica Dutz, Johan Saule, Andreas Nedobijczuk

A cutting station for the automatic cutting to a specific length of cable elements and has a magazine which extends in a longitudinal direction and a transverse direction and has several holders for one cable element each. The cable elements are held next to each other in a horizontal magazine plane. A processing head extends in a longitudinal direction, which is movable in a transverse direction relative to the stationary magazine and is designed for gripping, pulling off and cutting to a specific length a respective currently selected cable element from the magazine. Each holder has two fixing elements spaced apart from one another in the longitudinal direction for holding the cable element. For machining by the processing head, a respective holder with a respective cable element is lifted in a preferred configuration from the magazine plane into the working plane.

Method of manufacturing electrical cable, and resulting product, with reduced required installation pulling force

U.S. Patent No.: 11,527,339

Patent date: Dec. 13, 2022 Filed: May 2, 2022

Assignee: Southwire Company LLC, USA

Inventors: Philip Sasse, et al.

Disclosed are cable types, including a type THHN cable, the cable types having a reduced surface coefficient of friction, and the method of manufacture thereof, in which the central conductor core and insulating layer are surrounded by a material containing nylon or thermosetting resin. A silicone based pulling lubricant for said cable, or alternatively, erucamide or stearyl erucamide for small cable gauge wire, is incorporated, by alternate methods, with the resin material from which the outer sheath is extruded, and is effective to reduce the required pulling force between the formed cable and a conduit during installation.

Hearing device cable

U.S. Patent No.: 11,523,225

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Feb. 17, 2022

Assignee: Starkey Laboratories, Inc., USA

Inventor: Sidney Higgins, David Tourtelotte

A hearing device cable including a body portion is described herein. The body portion may extend between a first end region and a second end region along a tube centerline. The body portion may include a first radial portion proximate the first end region and second radial portion proximate the second end region. The first radial portion may define a radius of curvature that is greater than or equal to a radius of curvature defined by the second radial portion. The tube centerline may lie along an x-y plane between the first and second end regions. In one or more embodiments, the body portion may define a passageway extending between the first and second end regions. Further, the hearing device cable may include a superelastic wire within the passageway extending between the first and second end regions.

Coating removing method for cable and coating removing device for cable

U.S. Patent No.: 11,522,350

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Aug. 28, 2020

Assignee: Yazaki Corporation, Japan

Inventor: Sanae Katou

There is provided a coating moving method for a cable that removes a coating at a terminal portion of a cable, including a step of applying a pressing force having such a magnitude that a cutting edge stops at a position before reaching the core wire to the cutting blade to make an incision on the coating by the cutting blade, a step of twist-cutting an uncut portion of the coating between the cutting edge of the cutting blade and the outer periphery of the core wire by rotating the coating on a distal end side from an incision position with respect to the coating on a base end side, and a step of removing the coating on the distal end side from the incision position by gripping and pulling out the coating on the distal end side from the incision position to expose the core wire.

Thermal modeling for cables transmitting data and power

U.S. Patent No.: 11,520,115

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Nov. 30, 2020

Assignee: Corning Research & Development Corporation, USA

Inventors: Donal Larson, Michel Menguy

In a first embodiment, cable sealing device is described herein for use in a port structure of fiber terminal, telecommunication enclosure, or a bulkhead. The exemplary cable sealing device comprises a unibody construction comprising a rigid body portion, the rigid portion having a gener- ally tubular shape that includes an interior passageway extend from a first end to a second end of the rigid body portion; and an elastomeric body portion over molded onto and extending from an end of the rigid body portion, the elastomeric body portion comprises a front end having an interior sleeve that extends into interior passageway at the second end of rigid body portion and an exterior sealing sleeve that is formed over the second end of rigid body portion, and a closed end disposed opposite the open end, wherein the closed end includes a removable portion.

Thermal modeling for cables transmitting data and power

U.S. Patent No.: 11,519,789

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Sept. 16, 2020

Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc., USA

Inventors: Christopher Bullock, Dylan Walker, Chad Jones, Joel Goergen

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving at a thermal modeling module, data from a Power Sourcing Equipment device (PSE) for cables extending from the PSE to Powered Devices (PDs), the cables configured to transmit power and data from the PSE to the PDs, calculating at the thermal modeling module, thermal characteristics for the cables based on the data, and identifying a thermal rise above a specified threshold at one of the cables. The data comprises real-time electrical data for the cables. An apparatus and logic are also disclosed herein.

Cable, cable shape sensing system, sensing system, and cable shape sensing method

U.S. Patent No.: 11,519,759

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Dec. 29, 2020

Assignee: Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., Japan

Inventors: Masateru Tadakuma, Shigehiro Takasakau, Ryuichi Sugizaki

A cable comprising: a plurality of optical fiber cores; and one or more optical fiber core wires including one or more of the optical fiber cores. Further, at least one of the optical fiber core wire is fixed at a plurality of positions in a longitudinal direction of the cable so as to achieve substantially no displacement in a cable radial direction, at least a pair of the optical fiber core wires are fixed in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the cable so as to achieve substantially no displacement relative to each other, and sensing of a strain profile in the longitudinal direction of at least the pair of the optical fiber core wires leads to achievement of sensing of a shape of the cable in the longitudinal direction.

Method and system for tin immersion and soldering of core wire

U.S. Patent No.: 11,517,970

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Dec. 14, 2017

Assignee: Goertek Inc., China

Inventor: Gang Du

Disclosed are a method and a system for tin immersion and soldering of a core wire which includes: inserting a core wire row into molten tin vertically; moving the each core wire in the molten tin along a direction perpendicular to the core wire row to remove carbonized matter from each core wire on a moving direction side; pulling the each core wire out of the molten tin; and performing alignment, such that the inner core conductor of the each core wire on the moving direction side contacts with a bonding pad. According to the technical solution of the present disclosure, the carbonized matter on the core wire that aligned facing the bonding pad is removed, such that the temperature transfer effect of the automatic soldering is improved, the yield of the automatic soldering is improved, and the consistency and the yield of the automatic soldering are more stable.

Apparatus and method for center twisting wires

U.S. Patent No.: 11,517,957

Patent date: Dec. 6, 2022 Filed: Feb. 5, 2021

Assignee: Aptiv Technologies Limited, Barbados

Inventors: Frank Ciapala, Jeffrey Handel

An apparatus configured to twist a first wire about a second wire is presented herein. The apparatus includes a securing mechanism configured to secure ends of the first wire and the second wire. The first wire is arranged parallel to the second wire along a longitudinal axis. The apparatus further includes a gripping mechanism configured to grip central portions of the first and second wires, a tensioning mechanism configured to apply a lateral offsetting force to the gripping mechanism, thereby deflecting the central portions of the first and second wires orthogonally from the longitudinal axis, and a rotating mechanism configured to rotate the gripping mechanism, thereby twisting the first and second wires about one another. A method of twisting a pair of wires is also presented.

Sealing end for high-voltage cables

U.S. Patent No.: 11,515,697

Patent date: Nov. 29, 2022 Filed: March 1, 2021

Assignee: Nexans, France

Inventors: Christian Frohne

A high-voltage cable sealing end (100) has a primary volume (102) and a secondary volume (104) fluidically connected thereto, which are filled with an insulating fluid. The primary volume (102) and the secondary volume (104) are sealed with respect to the atmosphere surround-

(Patent Report continued, see p. 148) presents its: