Holy moly! Way to do you research, Toyota!

Jstas

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/17/autoline-on-autoblog-with-john-mcelroy/

TOYOTA'S HYBRIDS COULD BE BANNED FROM THE AMERICAN MARKET

In a shocking development Toyota faces a lawsuit filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission that seeks to ban the import of all hybrids to the American market. Toyota is being sued by Paice LLC for patent infringement on its hybrid system.

Before you think this is just a frivolous lawsuit that has no standing whatsoever, consider the fact that Paice has already successfully sued Toyota on five counts of patent infringement, and won on three of them. In April of this year, Paice was awarded by the Federal district court in the Eastern District of Texas a future royalty of $98 for every Prius sold.

Toyota is appealing that verdict, but just to up the ante Paice decided to file its suit with the ITC and go for an all-out ban on all the hybrids the giant Japanese automaker brings into the U.S. market.

Paice's hybrid system is the brainchild of Russian inventor Alex Severinski who managed to emigrate from the former Soviet Union in the mid-1970s. He landed in the United States smack dab in the middle of the first oil embargo. The way he tells it he escaped from the Soviet system where people had to stand in line to buy food only to land in America were people were standing in line to buy gasoline. Being an electronics engineer he decided to design a series hybrid system based on low-cost, high-voltage electronics. Severinski then began the long, arduous effort to get the auto industry interested in his invention.

Toyota would certainly lose a lot of face if it turns out that it infringed on someone else's patents
Fast-forward a decade or so and an entirely chance encounter brought his invention to the attention of the late Bob Templin, the former chief engineer at Cadillac. Templin was retired at the time but became intrigued by the possibilities that Severinski's invention offered. Soon he recruited other automotive executives with extensive experience, including Ted Louckes, the former chief engineer of Oldsmobile, and Bob Oswald the former president of North American operations for the Bosch Company.

I mention their names because I've known each of these men for most of my career. They're honest, straight-forward executives who came up through the engineering ranks and really know technology. They're not the types who could get snowed by some pie-in-the-sky inventor.

The first thing they did was advise Severinski to get his invention patented. After that they joined Paice's board of directors. Then they too tried to get automakers interested in their hybrid system, but to no avail.

When Toyota came out with the Prius, Paice was pretty sure Toyota had infringed on its patents, so it sued the automaker. The lawsuit wound its way through the courts until they won this April's verdict.

Clearly Paice is more interested in getting Toyota to pay it royalties than in preventing the automaker from importing hybrids. And while Toyota can easily afford to pay them, it would certainly lose a lot of face if it turns out that it infringed on someone else's patents while trying to build its reputation as the world's leader in hybrid technology.

I wonder if this will land Ford in hot water too? Although, Toyota did try to sue Ford for patent infringement on the Hybrid system they use but IIRC, it was settled in Ford's favor. Toyota and Ford's systems are similar but not the same. I wonder if Paice will set their sights on the Ford Hybrids as well?

That's pretty ground shaking for Toyota though, especially if they lose the lawsuit. The marketing campaign they have been pushing is that of the "technology leader". Even if history is showing that to not be so true, this would shatter that image completely if they did actually infringe on someone else's idea. It's pretty much intellectual property theft and very much like plagiarism.

Not an anti-Toyota thing, just some news I wasn't expecting to hear. I knew Paice had sued Toyota for 5 different infringements but I didn't know they were successful on any of them let alone 3 out of 5. If that is the case, that doesn't bode well for this suit in the ITC, especially since there is precedent. At any rate, win or lose, this is going to damage Toyota's reputation. Maybe not so much here because of the sheltered sheeple insisting that Toyotas rule and all others drool but likely in the rest of the world where media is less dependent on sponsorship dollars and Toyota doesn't have the deity status it enjoys here in North America.

Serendipity

Interesting.

I like hybrids made by Ford, GM, and Chrysler.

bobman1235

I don't know, I think you overestimate how much coverage this will get in the mainstream. I agree that it will hurt Toyota's image in "car circles" but most people are staggeringly ill-informed about this kind of thing, and it will take a LOT of negative press to counteract all of the "good will" the Prius has generated amongst the Hybrid crowd.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Nice job not being anti Toyota, especially with the last sentence.

nooshinjohn

bobman1235 wrote: »

I don't know, I think you overestimate how much coverage this will get in the mainstream. I agree that it will hurt Toyota's image in "car circles" but most people are staggeringly ill-informed about this kind of thing, and it will take a LOT of negative press to counteract all of the "good will" the Prius has generated amongst the Hybrid crowd.

I think it safe to say if it were GM/Ford/Chrysler being sued it would be the lead story on every news broadcast on every network, and the headline of every newspaper and magazine everywhere. For some reason the anti-American zealots love to see failure in everything that is good about this country.

When a major foreign automaker has an image problem or scandal of any kind come up, it is relegated to the back of the paper or not even mentioned in a broadcast until the story has been cleaned up by the company in question and cleared for broadcast. In short, there will be no reporting of Toyota's theivery, or their failure in some examples to meet basic U.S. safety standards because it does not serve an anti-American agenda.

Jstas

bobman1235 wrote: »

I don't know, I think you overestimate how much coverage this will get in the mainstream. I agree that it will hurt Toyota's image in "car circles" but most people are staggeringly ill-informed about this kind of thing, and it will take a LOT of negative press to counteract all of the "good will" the Prius has generated amongst the Hybrid crowd.

I said that the image in North America likely won't be affected much but elsewhere in the world, Toyota doesn't have the same level of fanatical support and blind allegiance and it will affect them there. If the Toyotas do get shutdown in the market then media darling or not, it will make news.

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Nice job not being anti Toyota, especially with the last sentence.

My sentiments are not anti-Toyota, they are anti-sheeple. There's a difference.

bobman1235

Jstas wrote: »

I said that the image in North America likely won't be affected much but elsewhere in the world, Toyota doesn't have the same level of fanatical support and blind allegiance and it will affect them there.

Whoops, sorry, I missed that part.

shawn474

This too shall pass. Regardless of patent infringement, Toyota still makes a damn fine car and I doubt very seriously that anyone would not buy a Toyota due to this article (whatever the outcome of the suit may be).

Jstas

shawn474 wrote: »

This too shall pass. Regardless of patent infringement, Toyota still makes a damn fine car and I doubt very seriously that anyone would not buy a Toyota due to this article (whatever the outcome of the suit may be).

I believe that you are mistaken. I know one guy who is now looking at buying a Ford or Honda hybrid because he doesn't want to deal with a lack of support from Toyota if they do get found guilty of patent infringement.

Cars are a different beast. Many people buy Toyotas because of a perceived higher quality level and lack of hassle. But if there is a chance there will be a problem, they bail and find something else. "Damn fine car" or not.

inspiredsports

Toyota does a decent job and I have owned a few and currently have 1 Camry amongst my fleet of 5 mixed import and domestic vehicles (3 driving teens), but I sure hope Toyota is competing with our troubled automakers on a fair and legal footing.

shawn474

Jstas wrote: »

I believe that you are mistaken. I know one guy who is now looking at buying a Ford or Honda hybrid because he doesn't want to deal with a lack of support from Toyota if they do get found guilty of patent infringement.

Cars are a different beast. Many people buy Toyotas because of a perceived higher quality level and lack of hassle. But if there is a chance there will be a problem, they bail and find something else. "Damn fine car" or not.

Jstas,
I am not disagreeing with your viewpoint, but I can tell you that your "one guy" doesn't speak for the masses when it comes to car buying. Let's wait until the sales reports come back to draw any conclusions about effect on the market. Fact is Toyota is one of the, if not the, best selling auto manufacturer in the world. I am sure you will pull up stats to the contrary, but there's a reason every other car is a camry, every other minivan is a sienna, every other truck is a tacoma or tundra, etc. (Note: I am being sarcastic when I say every other one).

AsSiMiLaTeD

Even if they are found guilty, it's going to be something small like a small element of the design or something along the lines of some red tape they didn't adhere to. It's not going to be like they snuck in to the pace factory and stole the plans or something.

That's the main reason I doubt this will end up being a bug deal, because most likely it isn't.

obieone

The state-run media won't touch this.

nooshinjohn

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Even if they are found guilty, it's going to be something small like a small element of the design or something along the lines of some red tape they didn't adhere to. It's not going to be like they snuck in to the pace factory and stole the plans or something.

That's the main reason I doubt this will end up being a big deal, because most likely it isn't.

It is a big deal because theft is theft. Do you tell your kids when they take .50 cents out of your wife's purse that it's no"big deal" or do you correct them before they take a hundred bucks out of your wallet. If Toyota did this then they should loose all right to any profit from their theft, and send a message that they must play by the same rules in the marketplace that have been forced upon American companies by the politicians in Washington. Trust me on this one, if GM did this to Toyota, GM would lose in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit. It's time American companies return the favor...

bobman1235

Infringing on a patent is not NECESSARILY theft. Just because they infringed on the patent doesn't mean they stole the idea; it simply means they had a similar idea and didn't do due diligence to make sure it wasn't the same as someone else's already patented idea. Given the size of Toyota, they're certainly capable of finding this information out, and I'm not trying to say they're innocent, but just make sure you're not confusing what's being claimed here. It would be easy for anyone here to think up a brilliant idea, and go to market with it, only to find out that they had unknowingly infringed on someone's (unused) patent.

AsSiMiLaTeD

We will see what happens then. If it comes out that it was just a red tape thing then I doubt anyone will care, that's my point

nooshinjohn

Even a "red tape" thing would be spun in such a way that an American firm would be shredded in our press... that's my point.

shawn474

If you guys think Toyota is the ONLY auto maker accused of "theft" such as this, you are sadly mistaken. This, in my humble opinion, is nothing more than a push to recoup some money that a company FEELS they are entitled to. Let the courts decide who is right and wrong, but I can assure you that this will not hurt Toyota's sales in the least. A 30 year history of reliability will not be undone by this. A blip on the radar......