TWI (Cambridge, UK) announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) upheld a key patent relating to the laser welding of plastics following oral proceedings held on September 13, 2007 in Munich, Germany.
The patent, EP 1117502, which claims the use of radiation absorbing materials to facilitate the welding process, had been initially opposed in October 2003 and revoked by the EPO in oral proceedings in February 2005. This latest ruling by the EPO successfully ends an appeal process initiated by TWI after the 2005 hearing and resulted in full validation of all claims in the patent.
Robert Skone James of Gill Jennings & Every LLP, TWI's European patent attorneys said, "TWI's patent was opposed by many of the major players in the plastics welding field citing more than 50 documents between them. It was therefore particularly pleasing that the EPO Appeal Board maintained the patent in the face of such strong attacks, indicating the significance of the Clearweld® invention."
The patent was originally granted in January 2003. Patents based upon the claims in EP 1117502 have also been granted in Australia (2002), Mexico (2003), China (2004), Japan (2005), and Brazil (2005) with patents pending in the United States, Canada, and Korea.
"We were always confident in our intellectual property, and obviously pleased with the reinstatement of our patent in Europe," said Laura Barrett, patents and licensing manager at TWI.
TWI has commercialized its laser welding technology under the Clearweld® brand name through a sole license agreement with Gentex Corporation (Carbondale, Pa., USA), an advanced technology company that also manufacturers proprietary radiation absorbing materials for a variety of light management applications, including laser protection and other unique light filtration products for military and commercial markets.
"The EPO decision confirms the authority of our intellectual property position worldwide," said John F. Pullo, vice president and general manager of the Performance Materials business unit at Gentex. "We are as delighted with this decision as we were dismayed by the ruling in 2005," Pullo said.
Gentex has also filed a number of patents related to Clearweld® technology in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, and Russia. In addition, Gentex has entered into non-exclusive license agreements with BASF AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany) and Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany) to permit them to sell their proprietary radiation absorbing materials into plastics laser welding applications worldwide.
Gentex has established commercial relationships with a number of equipment manufacturers, integrators, materials suppliers, and plastics processors to bring Clearweld® plastics laser welding technology to markets worldwide. Key application segments for Clearweld® include medical devices, electronics, microfluidics, fuel cells, packaging, automotive, and textiles. In addition to the marketing and technical staff, development laboratory, and production facilities at the Carbondale, PA headquarters, the company has employees and representatives in Europe and Japan. TWI also maintains a technical staff and development laboratory in Cambridge.
Information on Gentex and Clearweld® can be found at www.gentexcorp.com and www.clearweld.com. Information on TWI can be found at www.twi.co.uk.
