ROMER had sued FARO Technologies over US patent 5829148, which describes a way for articulated arm coordinate measurement machines to rotate their swivel axis without encountering a hard stop.
ROMER has a 8-year-old patent on a four-jointed arm; FARO's arm has three joints, and its design predates the ROMER patent by 17 years.
The jury in San Diego, CA found unanimously that ROMER's patent is valid, but not that FARO infringed on it. The judge ordered a new trial with a new jury in April. So, naturally, the two combatants are declaring victory with last week's event:
* Hexagon AB Patent Upheld; Retrial Ordered
* FARO Vindicated by Mistrial Verdict in Patent Infringement Suit
ROMER and subsidiary CimCore design and manufactures portable coordinate measurement machines; ROMER, in turn, is a subsidiary of Hexagon of Sweden.
FARO Technologies manufactures portable, computerized measurement devices, and is based in USA.
Update
Faro filed for re-examination of ROMER's patent, and the US Patent Office has preliminarily rejected some of ROMER's claims. ROMER immediately provided more info in an attempt hang on to its patent.
The excitment mounts....
I bought a Faro arm and can only guess that the Faro/Romer patent wars are only benefitting the lawyers. I wonder how much of the $80k I spent with Faro went to their lawyers.
Posted by: | Dec 12, 2006 at 10:53 PM
Romer its superior than faro, faro its a joke for the metrology world its just marketing. I really see more profesionalism in Romer so don't buy faro arms, I have 8 years of experience in CMM
Posted by: Omar Revilla | Dec 20, 2006 at 02:09 PM