Bruce, saw Mike Briggs today. He came dangerously close to shooting the match...but escaped before we could force him into it.

Ha looked at my X5 and ran off of get one.

I'm sure SIG thinks it didn't infringe, and that their design is different. It had to be aware of Steyr's design. But that is what lawsuits are for.

This is a somewhat arcane area of law. Unless you know the designs intimately and have a fair amount of experience litigating these, it will be hard to predict how this comes out.

Meh...patent lawsuits.

One thing that none of us on the outside is privy to is whether or not Steyr previously contacted SIG about concerns over their patent. From the posts in this thread there seems to be the presumption that the filed suit is something out of the blue, where it very well may not be. Steyr might have done this because they felt that they weren't getting anywhere with negotiations with Exeter-cum-Newington...or possibly extending all the way back to Eckernforde. We don't really know for certain, at least until this starts playing out in the open.

I betting that this dies in court in that it impacts every company with a modular pistol.

Good Morning Gentlemen,

I'll go way out on a limb here - in my former life I was a patent attorney.

There are a lot of variables, but if the patents are from the late 1990s, the term is twenty years from filing, plus any additional time allowed by a term extension created by the prosecution period - not caused by the applicant.

The protection afforded under a patent - are the claims. Even if the description in the patent's specification may go off in many directions, and with many details, the claims are the actual boundaries for protection - the so called metes and bounds, taken from real estate convention and property law.

I have not looked at the patents at issue, but I suspect this is far from a simple case. I worked on patent litigations in the past where certain punctuation in the claims, and how that punctuation impacts construction of the claim elements; decided the case - meaning no literal infringement, and the defendant wins.

D.O.A.

Forgot to mention,
That the fact that patents came from the late 1990s means that even with the US Supply contract now creating a storm of interest, the Steyr Company still needed to police their issued patent. Policing a Patent or Patent Portfolio, prevents problems like this - especially problems happening years after a competitor's patent has issued, and is out in the wild.

If too much time has passed, Steyr will have a hard time convincing the courts that they did proactively protect their rights under their patent - and this is only assuming that their could be any infringement.

Also, if Sig knew about Steyr's Patent - which it probably did, since companies will investigate the terrain before spending the resources to tool up, and manufacture a product; it seems pretty unlikely that they went forward with a threat of potential litigation hanging out there.

If Sig knew about the alleged "infringement" and did not care, or did not take steps to work out a deal with Styer, that is "willful" infringement. Willful infringement - if proved - is TRIPLE DAMAGES! I cannot believe Sig would have done something as foolish as that. But you never know.

Time will tell; SIG has a history of playing fast an loose, recall their SIG516 Bolt issues - wasn't in LMT or someone else who held them to the fire???

Yeah I remember that case in the news, just googled the name - and came up with Adams Arms as the manufacturer.

quote:

Originally posted by SigSentry:
The serialized part on the sig pro is the frame. Pistols like the lc9s that have a "frame insert" that is serialized can at least have the frame replaced "technically" but Ruger won't sell separate frames.

This is true, but the Steyr patent makes no mention of serialization as a claimed feature.

-B

Not the first time Sig has borrowed others designs... LWRC Int had a nifty bolt carrier design that Sig basically appropriated and advertised as their own in their piston AR debut. Sig will have to prove their design is different or change the design as they did with the lwrci carrier by adding lightening cuts and other subtle changes to their carrier.

Y'know, I think we're going to wait until someone with the skills of an examiner goes through the patents before we're certain that SIG relied Steyr's work. I freely confess to not knowing that much about intellectual property and knowing pretty much nothing when it comes to engineering, but this whole thing just seems weird at first blush.

I don't know how this will affect the analysis on the forum but if I may, I'd like to point out that:

• 1) according to the Complaint linked in the "Leghorn" article, Steyr does indeed mention the P250 at ¶¶11 and 12 but there is no mention of the Sig Pro 2340.
• 2) The Steyr patent does come up in the list of patents cited relative to the SIG-Sauer patent. This would mean that either SIG-Sauer made a reference to the Steyer in their patent application or the patent examiners noted the Steyer patent and still issued SIG-Sauer a patent US2009071053 (A1).

quote:

Originally posted by astraightshooter:
Forgot to mention,
That the fact that patents came from the late 1990s means that even with the US Supply contract now creating a storm of interest, the Steyr Company still needed to police their issued patent. Policing a Patent or Patent Portfolio, prevents problems like this - especially problems happening years after a competitor's patent has issued, and is out in the wild.

If too much time has passed, Steyr will have a hard time convincing the courts that they did proactively protect their rights under their patent - and this is only assuming that their could be any infringement.

Too many people are ignorant of this concept, or choose to ignore it, as it applies to patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

About a year ago many people vilified S&W for taking steps to protect their trademarks, and painted it as merely a big company picking on smaller companies. Many didn't want to hear that S&W needed to aggressively protect their trademarks or risk losing them.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Time will tell; SIG has a history of playing fast an loose, recall their SIG516 Bolt issues - wasn't in LMT or someone else who held them to the fire???

It's the main reason why there's a 2nd gen 516. Evidently LWRC was not amused by SIG's loose and 'free' antics with the 1st gen design. Exeter didn't even wait for a determination from the courts before releasing the 2nd gen bolt design. I have one of each and frankly the 1st gen LWRC ripoff...er, I mean...inspired replica...has been the better and more reliable of the two.

There will be a settlement. Steyr will likely get some payout, and maybe some level of continuing royalties.

Wouldn't this also cover something like the Beretta Nano?

Very interesting....guess the attorneys will help figure this one all out. Curious to see how it will affect any other contracts the P320 has won and is in the process of fulfilling.

And the Honor Guard.

Oh, and the Ruger American Pistol also, IIRC. They use a removable chassis also.

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:
Wouldn't this also cover something like the Beretta Nano?