PTO declares Green Machine patent invalid

Green Machine asks North Carolina court to dismiss the lawsuit it filed against Machinex in 2019.

Green Machine Sales LLC, Whitney Point, New York, has asked a North Carolina court to dismiss the lawsuit the company filed in the spring of 2019 against Plessisville, Quebec-based Machinex Industries Inc. and its North Carolina-based U.S. subsidiary, Machinex Technologies Inc. The request follows the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) declaration that Green Machine’s U.S. Patent 9,950,346 (the ’346 patent) for its Green Eye Optical Sorter is invalid. 

Chris Hawn, CEO of Machinex Technologies Inc., says he felt strongly that Machinex would prevail in the case. “We knew and felt strongly that the case was what it was,” he tells Recycling Today. “It was a shame to spend so much time and energy on it.”

Hawn adds, “We are moving forward.”

Machinex petitioned the PTO to review patent ’346, which was issued to JJG IP Holdings LLC of Hampstead, New Hampshire, April 24, 2018, after being filed April 23, 2014, and concerns a system for "the identification and separation of heterogeneous material, the system comprising: a hyperspectral identification system for capturing spectra of material; a computer receiving and analyzing data from the hyperspectral identification system and selecting desired materials from the heterogeneous materials; and an ejection system, whereby the desired materials are ejected from the system." The inventors are listed as John F. Green of Baldwinsville, New York, and Peter A. Mendre of Haverhill, Massachusetts.

The PTO’s Oct. 4 decision that invalidated Green Machine’s patent ’346 comes down to the existence of prior artwork, with the PTO concluding, “Weighing the evidence of the disclosure of the references, the competing testimony and the reasoning to combine the references, we determine that Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1-16 of the '346 patent are unpatentable.”

In the Oct. 21 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District Of North Carolina, JJG IP Holdings LLP and Green Machine Sales LLC say they “stipulate to the dismissal, with prejudice, of all claims asserted by the Plaintiffs against the Defendants, with each party bearing its own costs and attorney’s fees incurred in connection with the claims asserted.”

They add that they “further jointly stipulate to the dismissal, without prejudice, of all counterclaims asserted by the Defendants against the Plaintiffs, with each party bearing its own costs and attorney’s fees incurred in connection with the claims asserted.”

Green Machine did not return Recycling Today’s request for comment on the matter. 

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