The Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation has recently confirmed validity of a Russian patent for a vehicle gearset and now the patent holder is determined to receive $1200 compensation for each large truck of European production, utilising the patented invention, imported into Russia during the last four years.
The number of the imported trucks is estimated to be about 7,000.
The patent for the gearset was originally received by NAMI, a leading Soviet/Russian car construction center as far back as 1986. The patent covers the gearset which is absolutely identical with the device produced by Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen AG (ZF) of Germany, and this device is used in the large trucks of virtually every European producer, including DAF, Iveco, MAN, Mercedes, Renault and others. Now the patent holder is filing suits against every importer of these trucks, expecting to receive a total of $8,5 mil.
So far the Russian branch of ZF has lost the case in three arbitration court instances in Russia. Now ZF has filed an Appeal with the Supreme Patent Board with the demand to invalidate the patent. ZF asserts that the gearset has been used by the European producers ever since 1906.
If the patent is invalidated, the Russian importers of the trucks will be freed from any claims.
We can only comment that this case shows how the Russian patent documentation is still underestimated and insufficiently worked with.
Had the patent non-infringement search on the Russian sources been done at the proper time and the patent identified, many problems could have been avoided and the European producer of the gearset could have resolved issue more easily.