Engineered Products Co. v. Donaldson Co., Inc.
| Citation | 313 F.Supp.2d 951 |
| Decision Date | 13 April 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. C 98-2106 MWB.,C 98-2106 MWB. |
| Parties | ENGINEERED PRODUCTS CO., Plaintiff, v. DONALDSON COMPANY, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa |
Bridget A. Sullivan, Craig J. Lervick, Cyrus A. Morton, Edward M. Laine, Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly, Minneapolis, MN, Richard S. Fry, Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, Cedar Rapids, IA, for Plaintiff.
Annamarie A. Daley, Christopher A. Seidl, Christopher J. Sorenson, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP, Stephen J. Holtman, Simmons, Perrine, Albright, Ellwood, Cedar Rapids, IA, for Defendant.
A plethora of pre-trial motions confronts the court in this patent infringement action. Although the motions are cast in terms of the admissibility of evidence, several of them are in reality motions for determination, as a matter of law, of key issues in the litigation. Consequently, this ruling on "pre-trial" matters addresses issues as involved and contentious as any summary judgment ruling and has at least as much likelihood as any summary judgment ruling to be outcome determinative on some claims and issues.
This patent infringement action between plaintiff Engineered Products Company (EPC) and defendant Donaldson Company (Donaldson) arises from Donaldson's creation and sale of two air filter indicator devices: the Air Alert, sold from 1997 to 1999, and the Next Generation Air Alert (NG Air Alert), sold from 1999 through the present. EPC contends that Donaldson's devices infringe EPC's U.S. Patent Number 4,445,456 (the '456 patent), issued on May 1, 1984, and expired in 2001, for a mechanical air filter restriction indicator with a lock-up feature. Because the court has already described the procedural and factual context to this litigation in some detail in prior published rulings, see Engineered Prods. Co. v. Donaldson Co., Inc., 165 F.Supp.2d 836 (N.D.Iowa 2001) (EPC I) (); Engineered Prods. Co. v. Donaldson Co., Inc., 225 F.Supp.2d 1069 (N.D.Iowa 2002) (EPC II) (); Engineered Prods. Co. v. Donaldson Co., Inc., 290 F.Supp.2d 974 (N.D.Iowa 2003) (EPC III) (), the court will not reiterate all of that background information here.
However, the court finds that it would be helpful to an understanding of the various discussions of the claimed invention in the '456 patent to include Figures 3 and 4 from the '456 patent, which show the claimed air filter indicating device in infold and outfold positions.
The court also finds it helpful to reiterate that the present dispute was prompted, at least in part, by a decision of General Motors (GM) in the mid-1990s to add a progressive air filter restriction indicator to its light truck platform, the GMT-800 platform. This platform includes large passenger vehicles, such as SUVs, and hence, was expected to see enormous growth. EPC and Donaldson, the only domestic manufacturers of progressive air filter restriction...
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