Patent Law

Blow Job

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

GE blew Mitsubishi into the ITC for infringing wind turbine patents 5,083,039; 6,921,985; and 7,321,221. Mitsubishi was initially found in violation for '039 and '985. Then the political breeze blew in. ITC's Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII), assigned to represent the public interest, disagreed with the initial finding. The OUII petitioned the full commission to blow the matter away. Now two Senators are breaking wind over it. Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore, with vested interests in wind power, are urging an airing out by the ITC. A Mitsubishi wind turbine complex is installed in Oregon. A wedge issue is whether GE met the requirement of practicing the claimed inventions domestically. It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way this wind blows.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on October 06, 2009 (boomark / email).