TRI-COLLAR v. REAMCO, INC., A DIVISION OF SUN OIL
| Decision Date | 21 April 1982 |
| Docket Number | 791548.,Civ. A. No. 781482 |
| Citation | 538 F. Supp. 669 |
| Parties | TRI-COLLAR, INC. v. REAMCO, INC., A DIVISION OF SUN OIL COMPANY. TRI-COLLAR, INC., and Bill G. Parker v. LOR, INC. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana |
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Guy E. Matthews, Hyer, Matthews & Reiter, Houston, Tex., Bob F. Wright, Domengeaux & Wright, Lafayette, La., for plaintiffs.
William M. Bass, Voorhies & Labbe, Lafayette, La., C. James Bushman and Margaret Anderson, Browning, Bushman & Zamecki, Houston, Tex., for defendant, Reamco, Inc., a Division of Sun Oil Co.
Jack W. Hayden, Houston, Tex., Edward Taulbee, Lafayette, La., for defendant, Lor, Inc.
Plaintiffs are Bill G. Parker, patentee, and Tri-Collar, Inc., exclusive licensee. The defendants are LOR, Inc. and Reamco, Inc., a Division of Sun Oil Company. Parker claims that he is the original and first inventor of a unique bottom hole stabilizer tool used in the drilling of oil wells to prevent wall sticking of drill collars and to enable proper and better drilling through the use of packed or bottom hole assemblies. The stabilizer invention was filed as a United States Patent Application in the United States Patent and Trademark Office on November 18, 1969, and issued as United States Patent Number 3,645,587 on February 29, 1972.
The plaintiffs allege that defendants have infringed Claims 1-3 and 5-9 of the Parker patent and seek to have the patent held valid, enforceable and infringed. Defendants deny these claims and ask the Court to declare the patent invalid and award attorney fees to the defendants under 35 U.S.C. § 285.1
The tools involved in this lawsuit, including the prior art tools, can be divided into three general categories: stabilizers, drill collars, and reamers.
The stabilizers with which this lawsuit is concerned with respect to the patent in suit, generally have a central tubular body to which are attached ribs or blades which extend outwardly to engage the walls of the bore hole and thereby centralize a drill string and bit in the center of the hole. The outside diameter of the blades or ribs is traditionally slightly smaller (usually about 1/16" smaller) than the gauge of the bore hole. This slight undersizing minimizes reaming of the bore hole by the ribs or blades and likewise minimizes the torqueing effect of the stabilizer. While these rib or blade-type stabilizers may, in theory, cause some reaming of the bore hole, just as the rotation of any tool downhole including drill pipe may do, their fundamental purpose is not to ream but to centralize the drill string.
The fundamental purpose of conventional drill collars is to place weight on the drill bit to cause it to penetrate the formations. Traditionally, drill strings have included a long upper section of drill pipe and a shorter lower section of drill collars. The string is suspended in the hole so that the upper section of drill pipe is under tension while the drill collars are under compression. The rotating drill collars, if permitted to lie against the bore hole, will wear it away and thereby theoretically perform a "reaming" function although this is not the fundamental purpose. While conventional drill collars are round in cross section, special square drill collars have been used in the past, primarily in packed hole assemblies.
Conventional reamers, as the name connotes, are drilling tools connected in a drill collar string to ream out the walls of the bore hole above the bit to maintain the hole at gauge. Typically, they include a short tubular body which can be screwed into the drill collar string and usually have three rollers spaced about their periphery which perform the reaming function. Since the roller reamers engage the wall of the bore hole at three equally spaced points, they necessarily keep the bit centered in the bore hole. While the blade or rib-type stabilizers and the roller reamers both have a bit centering function, the stabilizers perform this function with only incidental "reaming" caused by rubbing of the blades or ribs against the bore hole, while the roller reamers are designed to deliberately ream the walls of the bore hole. This difference becomes particularly significant in the drilling of deviated wells in relatively soft formations as is common in the Gulf Coast area. These deviated wells commonly use packed hole assemblies and when their reamers are used to pack the hole, the drill collar string lies on the low side of the deviated hole and the reamers tend to ream more deeply on the low side thereby tending to cause the direction of the hole to veer downward.
A packed hole can be defined as a bottom drill stem assembly that engages the hole wall at several different points above the bit so as to guide the bit in the direction already established. A drill string in a packed hole assembly utilizes drill collars to place weight on the bit. A stabilizer, in a sense, is a drill collar since it also places weight on the bit but stabilizers will have three or more blades or ribs that come in contact with the well bore. For packed hole drilling, the use of several stabilizers will greatly increase the stiffness of the lower drill collar string and prevent rapid change of the hole angle.
For many years, it has been recognized that long, stiff, "hole size" bottom stabilizing assemblies, properly utilized, can restrict hole deviation, even in deep, ordinarily troublesome wells, resulting in a reduction of drilling time and assuring a straight hole. It has been estimated that proper applications of packed hole techniques can eliminate up to 90% of the economic loss due to crooked holes.
"Balling up" of the mud and cuttings on the drill collar string has been a constant source of trouble in the industry. This is particularly true in a soft formation with the accumulation of "gumbo shell" around the blades of the stabilizer causing the drill string to stick resulting in delays in the drilling operations, expensive fishing jobs and sometimes the loss of the drill string which could have a value of one-third of the cost of the rig.
Various types of stabilizers have been in use for many years. For instance, Drilco Oil Tools, Inc., a company which specializes in oil field equipment and services, offered various welded blade stabilizers in the 1962-63 edition of the composite catalogue of Oil Field Equipment and Services. These stabilizers were designed to center drill collars in the hole and provide better alignment to the hole being drilled. The rotary blade was advertised as especially effective where "balling up" of the mud and cuttings on the drill collar string may be a problem. See Exhibit 1, p. 674.
Parker worked for Drilco from 1959 until February of 1968, as a salesman and drill collar inspector. During that time, he sold spiral and straight three-blade welded stabilizers and contends that they would ball up. About the time Parker left Drilco, he claims that he conceived the stabilizer invention covered by the patent in suit. Parker claims that his invention solves the problem of balling up by allowing a larger annular area for the flow of drilling fluids around the annulus of the tool and at the same time, greater wall contact with a fewer number of rib sections and the flow area extends for the entire length of the tool. In addition, the characteristics of the invention allow fast drilling operations such as in offshore formations.
The Parker stabilizer is formed from a tubular blank by milling three straight longitudinal grooves into the circular surface of the blank. The grooves are milled by simply removing material from the blank. Thus, the particular shape of the product, triangular in cross-section, plays an important part in the formation of the tool. See Exhibit 2, p. 13.
In February or March, 1968, Parker claims that he made a rough sketch of his invention and paid Jimmy Reese, a draftsman, $50 to prepare drawings of the stabilizer. Shortly thereafter, Parker took the drawings to Brown Tool and Supply in Odessa, Texas, but Brown was unable to build the tool. Attempts to have the tool built at Hunt Tool Company (May-July, 1968) and Prager Machine Shop (August-November, 1968) were also unsuccessful. In February of 1969, Parker presented the drawings to his old company, Drilco, and on May 31, 1969, Drilco invoiced Parker for his first triangular stabilizer (PK-301), which was lost in the hole on its first job. Drilco never returned the original drawings to Parker. Parker went into business for himself and operated under the name of "Parko, Inc.". After the patent was issued in 1972, Parker licensed Tri-Collar, Inc. to manufacture, use, lease and/or sell stabilizers covered by the patent in suit. Tri-Collar, the licensee, has been very successful with the Parker stabilizer. Gross revenues from 1975 through 1981, have increased from $185,000 to $3,600,000 and the Parker stabilizer has accounted for at least 85% of these revenues. Plaintiffs contend that Tri-Collar, Inc.'s business would have increased more but for the infringements of the defendants.
During the trial, James Reese intervened as a party plaintiff claiming equitable ownership to the patent in suit on the ground that he is the sole and original inventor of the triangular stabilizer and conceived the invention in early 1968, while inspecting stabilizers at Lower Coast Corporation, Inc. Reese contends that he made and gave Parker the drawings in March or April, of 1968, when they both worked for Brown and Root. Reese stated that he dropped the project when Parker returned from Odessa, and first told Reese that the machine shop could not make the stabilizers and later told Reese that such a triangular stabilizer had already been patented.
Parker denied Reese's version of the arrangement and two recorded tapes of...
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