Milwaukee Sues Over Batteries......

[comp56]

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (Legal Newsline) – Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. is suing eight companies, including Snap-On Inc., for patent infringement.

 

Milwaukee filed its lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Oct. 16.

 

The other plaintiffs include Metco Battery Technologies LLC, AC (Macao Commercial Offshore) Limited and Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd.

 

The named defendants are: Rich Power Industries Inc., Hilti Inc., Chervon North America Inc., Sunrise Global Marketing LLC, Max USA Corp., Tooltechnic Systems LLC, Positec Tool Corp./Positec USA Inc. and Snap-On.

 

In its filing, Milwaukee claims the companies are infringing on three patents for its Lithium-based battery packs for hand-held power tools.

 

The patents-in-suit include U.S. Patent Nos. 7,554,290, issued in 2009; 7,944,173, issued in 2011; and 7,999,510, also issued in 2011.

 

Milwaukee, TTi Macao and TTi Hong Kong are the owners of the three patents; MBT has a license to certain exclusive rights under the patents.

 

According to Milwaukee’s complaint, it introduced the first Lithium, or Li-Ion, hand-held cordless power tool in January 2005.

 

It claims that before then, most battery-operated hand-held power tools were powered by Nickel-Cadmium, or NiCad, battery packs.

 

However, the NiCad battery packs couldn’t provide the same level of power as corded, line-voltage power tools. NiCad battery packs of sufficient power were too heavy for commercial use and sale, Milwaukee wrote in its suit.

 

But its V28 line of Li-Ion powered hand-held tools changed all of that, “revolutionizing” the cordless tool industry, Milwaukee claims.

 

In fact, soon after its introduction, Li-Ion became the de facto industry standard, Milwaukee claims.

 

The company, headquartered in Brookfield, Wis., is seeking damages, along with interest and costs, attorneys’ fees and costs, a permanent injunction and jury trial.

 

A spokeswoman for Milwaukee said she could not comment on the pending litigation, and the company’s general counsel could not immediately be reached.

[chadlanthier]

Companies need to be so careful with anything new that comes out.

[comp56]

look at Samsung and Iphone .....Samsung survived........

[DR99]

Dewalt got nailed hard with their lithium phosphate batteries when they came out with a lawsuit. This could blow up in Milwaukees face no every company is going to look at their tools and electronics for any infringing technology. The funny thing about the Apple Samsung case is the face that Apple still had to buy components from Samsung during the whole situation. Samsung makes so many high tech components companies need like lcd displays and flash memory chips.

[DR99]

Hrmm its funny none of the bigger tool power tool companies are named in the lawsuit except for Hilti and Festool, and  Max power tools. They didn't go after Bosch, Makita, Dewalt or Black and Decker. ToolTechnic systems llc looks like its Festool USA, Sunrise global marketing is Greenworks, Chevron is a known oem for a bunch of tool companies, Positec is Worx and Rockwell, Max is a smaller company known for airtools and some battery tools but very limited like Hilti. Rich Power industries makes the Genesis brand tools and an power smith low level brand tools I have seen only a few times.

[comp56]

on both sides of the fence their lawyers are smarter than me........so I couldn't say why these companies do such things......

[woodstockva]

They sue smaller companies first because they have less of a budget for defense attorneys.....then once they win, they have a "legal precedent" on file, which makes it harder for the bigger companies to win when/if they get sued.

 

That being said, this sounds to me like it is similar to cell phone technology and/or online shopping cart technology.....if they have the patent, then they deserve the rights to that invention.  And normally that means competitors paying them royalty fees (per unit) to license it.

 

When the day comes that the patent expires, you have everyone copying them.....take FEIN for example....they invented the oscillating tool, and when the patent expired, ALL the major tool companies magically came out with them within months.

[regopit]

I can guarantee that every major tool company has a R & D department that has every competitors tool on a shelf and the have their own model waiting in the wings ready to go.

[DR99]

The thing is if some one can prove that their is any prior art even if it wasn't patented Milwaukee could lose the case on certain patents they are defending. Same thing with the Dewalt Radio charger they held on to a patent that pertained to a radio that also charged batteries. I think it must because Milwaukee wasn't willing to license the patent from Dewalt. It might have been too expensive at the time. Bosch was willing to pay for the radiocharger on their powerbox radios.