CTS Cement Manufacturing Co. did not infringe on three Ultimax patents associated with calcium sulfoaluminate cement, a federal court ruled on Jan. 24. The court also invalidated all three patents.
On June 13, 2002, Ultimax, Hassan Kunbargi, Heartland Cement Sales Company and KA Group, Ltd. filed a complaint against CTS Cement Manufacturing Co., Edward K. Rice and other entities, alleging patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.
The case centered around three U.S. patents that listed Kunbargi as the inventor.
Kunbargi had worked part time for CTS while he was a student at UCLA from 1986 to 1988 before he later founded Ultimax.
The alleged trade secrets were not fully identified by Ultimax until very late in the proceedings and were modified several times throughout the litigation. They were once described as the use of fluoride in calcium sulfoaluminate cement, a position later withdrawn by Ultimax.
Ultimax later stated that the alleged trade secret was the use of lithium carbonate in combination with citric acid. Belatedly, Ultimax argued that the trade secret involved a specific ratio of citric acid to lithium carbonate in calcium sulfoaluminate cement.
Throughout the litigation, CTS said it did not infringe on the Ultimax patents and that the three patents at stake were “junk science” that should never have been granted by the Patent Office. All three patents were rife with unbalanced chemical equations, omitted prior art and ambiguous scientific language.
Debunking junk science in federal court is not an easy matter : a U.S. Patent is presumed valid on its face. The allegations of infringement involved the definitions of heretofore unheard of entities such as “Crystal X”, “Crystal Y” or “Crystal Z”. These “crystals”, Ultimax claimed, were “new and unexpected in cement”, and CTS’ cement contained them. According to the patents, these crystals gave cement superior early strength and fast setting
