Regarding the Ruling of the U.S. District Court, Florida Middle District, On Patent Infringement Allegation Filed by MHI
1. Defendant
Name: General Electric Company (GE)
Location: Connecticut, U.S.A.
- * May 20, 2010 MHI filed a lawsuit against GE.
- * July 5, 2012 M.D. Fla. granted a summary judgment1 ruling that GE's wind turbines had not infringed a patent owned by MHI2. M.D. Fla. stated that claims should be interpreted based on embodiment in the patent specification, not by the plane meaning of language in the claim; and under such interpretation, it ruled that GE had not infringed on the cited patent.
- * July 30, 2012 MHI filed its opposition to the ruling in the summary judgment.
- * February 8, 2013 M.D. Fla. upheld its earlier summary judgment.
M.D. Fla. upheld its summary judgment passed down in July 2012 and reconfirmed that wind turbines made by GE had not infringed MHI's patent.
MHI believes that the interpretation of the patent claims rendered in M.D. Fla.'s judgment has too narrowly interpreted the patent's scope. As described in "5. Outlook" below, MHI intends to continue taking the necessary measures to enable its claim to be recognized.
MHI has the option to appeal M.D. Fla.'s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Going forward, MHI will issue swift notification of any matters, etc. that merit disclosure in the course of the ongoing proceedings.
The ruling newly passed down by M.D. Fla. will have no impact on MHI's consolidated earnings. In the event that any related matters call for disclosure going forward, the company will issue notifications swiftly.
1 A summary judgment is a judgment rendered solely by a judge, without passing through a formal factual inquiry in the presence of a panel of jurors. Both the plaintiff and the defendant have the right to request a review of a ruling handed down in a summary judgment.
2 The patent in question (U.S. Patent No. 7,452,185) is titled "Blade-Pitch-Angle Control Device and Wind Turbine Generator." It applies to technology to reduce the burden on a wind turbine by controlling the pitch angle of the turbine blades in accordance with the blade rotation angle and other factors.