Judge doubles patent infringement award against Ford
Late last month a judge awarded inventor Jacob Krippelz $55.6 million, after finding that Ford infringed on his patent for lights mounted to side rear view mirrors.
The amount doubles what a jury awarded Krippelz earlier. Krippelz, as we noted in a December 2008 post, had showed his patented invention (U.S. patent No. 5,017,903) to Ford, which later installed the device on millions of Ford Explorers.
The case has shades of Flash of Genius, the 2008 movie based on inventor Robert Kearns’s epic and somewhat pyrrhic infringement battle against Ford. Kearns spurned an initial settlement offer of some $30 million and later accepted a $10 million payout. He later successfully sued Chrysler. The 12-year imbroglio cost him his marriage. He died in 2005 of brain cancer, exacerbated by Alzheimer’s.
Krippelz showed Ford representatives the patent for his invention in the early 1990s. Ford demurred. In 1997, Krippelz walked into a Ford dealership, where a salesman showed off the side rear view mirror lights that Ford had installed in 1998 Ford Explorers.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel awarded additional damages after finding that Ford willfully infringed on Krippelz’s patent.
James Ryndak, Krippelz’s attorney, noted that Ford continued to use Krippelz’s lights on 10 different vehicle models during the 11-year infringement case.
“Our client is pleased with the result,” Ryndak told Inventors Digest this morning. “He feels vindicated by the jury and the court’s award. We think it’s an award well founded in all the evidence. We also feel it was conservative – it could have been trebled based on the conduct in the record.”
It’s unclear whether Ford will appeal.
Last year, Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans told Inventors Digest, “I can tell you we’re disappointed. We believe the side view mirrors we purchased don’t infringe this patent and we intend to appeal.”
Our post last year generated a comment from an interested bystander – Dennis Kearns, son of the late Robert Kearns.
“Good work!” Dennis wrote of the jury’s finding against Ford. “Perhaps someday they’ll change the way they do business.”
