Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co.

Background

The Cleveland Trust Company is the assignee in trust of about eighty patents that cover pistons used in automobile internal combustion engines. The patents are held under a pooling agreement involving an automobile maker and several piston manufacturers. Two of the patents at issue are the Gulick and Maynard patents. The dispute involves changes made to the Gulick patent application and how the patent claims describe web connections in piston skirts; lower-court judgments and language in this Court’s opinion were revised by today’s order.

Reasoning

The Court directed that the case be sent back to the Court of Appeals to decide whether amendments to the Gulick application voided the issued Gulick patent and to address all questions about validity and infringement of the Gulick and Maynard claims. At the same time, the Court instructed the appeals court not to treat web flexibility or laterally flexible webs as part of the patented combinations. The Court also amended language in its opinion to note that Claim 18 refers to web connections that render the piston skirt yieldable. The Court denied most of the motion to modify and the petition for rehearing.

Real world impact

The remand lets the appeals court reexamine whether these piston patents are valid and whether they were infringed, so automobile makers and piston manufacturers remain involved in further litigation. Narrowing the permitted claim elements by excluding web flexibility could limit how broadly the patents are read and may make some claims easier to challenge or harder to enforce. This order changes the litigation path but does not itself resolve final patent rights; further appellate work will follow.