Green Patent Blog

A recent Matter Network story about a New York dry cleaning business caught my attention.  Green Apple Cleaners (Green Apple), which has two locations in Manhattan and a third in Mahwah, New Jersey, uses environmentally-friendly Solvair Cleaning Systems to launder its clients’ clothes. 

The Solvair Cleaning System is owned by Illinois textile cleaning technology company R.R. Street & Co. (RRS) and covered by a family of RRS patents directed to cleaning systems using organic cleaning solvents and a pressurized fluid solvent. 

In the process disclosed by U.S. Patent Nos. 6,355,072, 6,736,859, 6,755,871 and 7,147,670, clothes are cleaned by an organic cleaning solvent in a perforated drum contained within a cleaning vessel, and the used solvent is extracted by rotating the drum at high speed.  The process then departs from conventional cleaning methods by removing residual solvent with a pressurized fluid instead of using an evaporative hot air drying cycle.

This is made possible because the organic cleaning solvent is soluble in the pressurized liquid solvent.  The pressurized fluid solvent is then transferred from the drum, and the vessel is de-pressurized so any remaining pressurized fluid solvent evaporates.  According to the patents, the result is less damage to both the clothes and the environment.

Green Apple also owns a federal registration for the GREEN APPLE CLEANERS mark (greenapplereg.pdf).  Interestingly, Green Apple’s eco-mark sailed through the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) in just eight months, avoiding the problems faced by other eco-marks such as GREEN BRANCH and GREEN PATENT BLOG.

Presumably, the PTO did not find GREEN APPLE CLEANERS merely descriptive of environmentally-friendly cleaning services because of the presence of the “APPLE” element in the mark.  This offers one lesson for applicants seeking federal registrations for eco-marks containing such eco-descriptive terms as GREEN or CLEAN:  add a non-descriptive, arbitrary word to your mark to spice things up and improve your chances of success in the PTO.

Parker West International, LLC (PWI) is a Santa Rosa, California company that provides environmentally-compliant industrial and commercial cleaning services.  PWI cleans nasty hydrocarbon and metallic contaminants, including oil, grease, heavy metals, diesel fuels and latex paints, using its patented “closed loop” waste treatment system (all contained in the pretty truck pictured above and shown in the drawing below). 

U.S. Patent No. 5,979,012 (’012 patent) is directed to a mobile waste treatment system including a wastewater treatment unit and a steam cleaning unit.  The system, housed in a truck or trailer, sprays steam onto a contaminated surface.  The steam condenses and emulsifies the surface contaminants, which are vacuumed up in the form of contaminated water and pumped to the steam cleaning unit on the truck and then piped to the wastewater treatment unit.  

The wastewater treatment unit churns the contaminated water with a clay-based flocculant (a chemical that cause particles suspended in solution to come out as flakes).  The sludge that separates out is deposited on a porous cloth on draining trays, and the drained water is re-used in the steam cleaning unit.  An important advantage of this system is that it provides on-site separation of solid and liquid waste, which facilitates environmentally-friendly disposal.

Last month PWI sued Clean Up America, Inc. (CUA), a Virginia-based cleaning equipment maker, in federal court in San Francisco for alleged infringement of the ‘012 patent, breach of contract, fraud and interference with business advantage.  According to the complaint (parkerwestcomplaint.pdf), in 2003 PWI granted CUA a non-exclusive license to use and sell PWI’s patented technology.  CUA was obligated to pay a royalty for such use and sale.  The agreement also gave PWI certain rights to sell its clay-based flocculants to CUA customers.

PWI alleges that CUA owes royalties on products and services it sold under the agreement and that CUA continues to sell and offer products and services that incorporate the technology of the ‘012 patent even though the agreement expired in 2006.  PWI is seeking damages and a court order enjoining CUA from engaging in infringing activity.

The fraud claim asserts, without any factual support, that CUA intentionally misrepresented its intent to pay PWI for use of the patented technology.  The federal rules of civil procedure require that a fraud claim be pleaded with particularity, so this claim could get tossed if PWI doesn’t amend its complaint to provide more detail.

The Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) is a New York-based organization that promotes the use and recycling of biodegradable polymeric materials.  BPI has a labeling program to certify plastic products that will safely and completely biodegrade and compost in accordance with the group’s standards.  Companies apply to BPI to have their products reviewed and, if they pass muster, they can affix BPI’s label to them.

In 2003, BPI got a federal registration (reg-no-2783960.pdf) for its COMPOSTABLE certification mark (pictured above).  Certification marks differ from ordinary trademarks in that they certify that goods or services meet certain quality or manufacturing standards instead of indicating the commercial source of a product.  Certification marks are owned by the organizations that set the standards and used by companies that meet the standards and earn the certifications. 

Earlier this month BPI sued several individuals operating EcoVision Alternatives (EcoVision), a Burlingame, California company that makes biodegradable bags and food containers, in federal court in Los Angeles for federal and state trademark infringement, counterfeiting and unfair competition.  The complaint alleges that EcoVision infringed BPI’s certification mark by selling bags and containers that display the COMPOSTABLE mark and by stating on its web site that its products are “BPI certified” when EcoVision never applied to BPI’s labeling program and the products were not certified.

According to the complaint (biodegradablecomplaint.pdf), this is not the first instance of infringement by the EcoVision crowd.  The complaint states that EcoVision wrongfully used BPI’s certification mark earlier this year when the company was operating under the name Biosphere Alternatives (Biosphere).  At the time, BPI contacted Biosphere to ask them to stop using the mark and subsequently sent a cease and desist letter.  BPI alleges that EcoVision is acting now with full knowledge of its wrongdoing and malicious intent and therefore accuses the company of willful infringement.

The counterfeiting claim is a bit unusual for a certification mark infringement suit; counterfeiting is more typical where the infringing goods are high end consumer products like Rolex watches or Gucci handbags.  But the motivation for the claim is clear - in the case of willful use of a counterfeit mark, the federal trademark statute provides for a minimum damages award of $1 million.

Restaurant Technologies owns a patent for a waste cooking oil removal system.  The invention disclosed in U.S. Patent No. 5,249,511 can distribute and meter fresh oil, filter and recirculate used oil, and remove and store waste oil.  The system eliminates the need for manual handling of hot oil and the need to filter and dispose of the oil at selected intervals.  The system includes a filter station, a fryer station with a pair of valves, a supply station with a storage tank and an entrance and exit valve, and a waste station comprising a receptacle and an entrance and exit valve.  The stations are connected by piping, and a valve controller selects the pipe path among the stations.  The system can be operated electronically or manually; the operator either uses a microprocessor or a manual network of push-pull knobs to open and shut the appropriate valves and effect the desired operation.

Restaurant Technologies sued Jersey Shore Chicken and Klee’s Bar & Grill in U.S. District Court in New Jersey for using an allegedly infringing oil supply system.  The accused equipment was provided by Oilmatic, which came to the defense of its customers and sued Restaurant Technologies for unfair competition, antitrust violations and a declaratory judgment that its system did not infringe the ‘511 patent.  The Oilmatic system consists of a fresh oil tank, a waste oil tank, piping connected to pumps, a waste pipe nozzle and a dipstick nozzle to fill or remove cooking oil from a fryer vat.  The user controls operations by turning a switch on the dipstick nozzle to “fill”, “off” or “drain” and pressing a pump start/stop button.

The claims of the patent include the terms “control means” for operating the valves and selecting a pipe path and “means for metering oil” to the fryer.  These terms are written in accordance with the  “means-plus-function” provision of U.S. patent law, which permits a patentee to draft claims that recite a function to be performed without also reciting in the claims the structure needed to perform the function.  The patentee must disclose corresponding structure elsewhere in the patent.  A “means-plus-function” claim term is interpreted by determining which structure disclosed in the written description of the patent corresponds to the function recited in the patent claims.

The court determined that the corresponding structure for the “control means” includes microprocessor controls and the manual push-pull knob network.  The court held the Oilmatic system does not satisfy this claim element because it has no microprocessor controls and the dipstick switch and button is substantially different from Restaurant Technologies’ knob network.  The court found that the corresponding structure for the “means for metering oil” is a trigger valve with a nozzle which opens when the valve is squeezed.  Although the Oilmatic system uses a nozzle, it does not employ a squeezable valve.  Instead, oil is supplied to the fryer by pushing the start button on the dipstick to turn on the fresh oil pump, which operates by shaft rotation, not squeezing.  Therefore, the court found that the Oilmatic system does not infringe the ‘511 patent.   

Systems like those provided by Restaurant Technologies and Oilmatic could work synergistically with the business model of companies like New Leaf Biofuel, which collects waste cooking oil from restaurants and uses it as raw material for biodiesel production.  Waste oil recovery technology could help to increase the supply of raw materials for biodiesel and improve the pathway from the frying pan to the gas tank.