Toyota Prius Success Runs Into Soviet Emigrant’s Patent Claim

Source: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The success of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius, the best-selling hybrid car in the U.S., may stall if Alex Severinsky doesn’t get paid.

The Soviet emigrant, who began his career developing antitank-warfare instrumentation, is getting his day in court over his claims that the idea he patented in 1994 for a high- voltage system to power gas-electric hybrid cars was used by Toyota without permission. Severinsky, 65, has spent years trying to get the automaker to pay royalties, and a hearing that starts today may lead to the U.S. blocking imports of the Prius.

“When I invented the hybrid engine, I said ‘this is the biggest invention I can ever make,’” Severinsky, who fled to the U.S. in 1978 with his wife, son and $800, said in an interview. “They are thieves.”

Toyota, which was found to have infringed the patent in an earlier case, said its hybrid vehicles are the result of its own research and is asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to deny Severinsky’s latest claims.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-18/toyota-prius-success-runs-into-soviet-emigrant-s-patent-claim.html

However, if they want to continue to get headlines for acting like a------s, then, as an ex-patriot of the Great State of Michigan, I can only wish them well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns

He sued both Ford and Chrylser and his lawsuits went on for years. Great movie about him too:

it had something to do with cruise control systems. Apparently he took something to them and they said they were not interested and then a little while later they came out with something similar. I wish I could remember exactly what it was now. He was thoroughly convinced that he was screwed over.

Well yeah, if by research they mean searching the Patent's Office database.

It'll be interesting to watch, for sure.

for the courts to decide upon, my how silly I feel now.

• Elisha Gray (telephone, 1876, pre-Bell; music synthesizer, 1874; others)
  
• Philo Farnsworth (CRT television, 1921; fusion technology, 1966; gastroscopy; others)
  
• Nikola Tesla (radio, logic gates, remote control, efficient electricity transmission, 1897-1908; others)
  
• Gustave A. Whitehead (flight, 1901)
  
• Humphry Davy (nitrous oxide anesthesia, 1799; electric light, 1800; elements chlorine, potassium, calcium, magnesium, boron, barium)
  
• Peter Goldmark (LP record, 1958; field-sequential mechanical color TV, 1939; wide-area network, 1970)
  
• Vasco de Gama (1497); Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins (1593); John Woodall (1614); Pedro González (1789); Mrs Ebot Mitchell (1807); many others -- citrus fruit to prevent and treat scurvy
  
• E. R. Smilie (ether/opium anesthesia, 1844)
  
• William Morton (ether-only anesthesia, 1846)

Several of these are in dispute, but all are well-attested. Also, the level of "screwing over" is relative. Peter Goldmark was well-compensated for developing the LP and early color TV, and retains his legendary status among engineers. Sir Humphry Davy is another legendary figure who invented and discovered so much that his contributions to science (and philosophy, and literature) are impossible to minimize.

--d!

"Peter Goldmark (LP record, 1958)...."

I am pleased to be the owner of many examples of his wonderful invention.

Peter Goldmark

He died on his 71st birthday.

Source: Bloomberg News

The success of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius, the best-selling hybrid car in the U.S., may stall if Alex Severinsky doesn’t get paid.

The Soviet emigrant, who began his career developing antitank-warfare instrumentation, is getting his day in court over his claims that the idea he patented in 1994 for a high- voltage system to power gas-electric hybrid cars was used by Toyota without permission. Severinsky, 65, has spent years trying to get the automaker to pay royalties, and a hearing that starts today may lead to the U.S. blocking imports of the Prius.

>

Toyota, which was found to have infringed the patent in an earlier case, said its hybrid vehicles are the result of its own research and is asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to deny Severinsky’s latest claims.

The Washington-based ITC must decide what is more important: Severinsky’s right to protect the millions of dollars invested in his invention or the potential economic harm of banning Toyota’s hybrid-vehicle imports.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-18/toyota-s-prius-success-threatened-by-soviet-emigrant-s-hybrid-patent-claim.html

GM had a hybrid car design in 1969 and never developed it further. If anyone has any patents on the technology it would be GM.

Got the pat. numbers ?

but I'm sure they're in a filing cabinet somewhere.

every single patent relating to banjos going back to 1867 on the US gov patent site - there's a few hundred of them.

Since you raised the subject I suggest you find the ones relating to what you claim exists. If you fail we'll assume you made it up.

Never mind, I'll do it for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Stir-Lec_I



And another GM prototype hybrid, the XP-883:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_XP-883

Except for improvements in battery technology and automation, the Chevy Volt is more or less a front-wheel drive Stir-Lec brought forward 40 years.

I don't have time to do a patent search, and I'm not even sure GM patented anything in their R&D back in the 1960's (although any company as smart as GM was supposed to be would have done so immediately), but if anyone has a prior claim on the hybrid drive train, it's GM and not this joker.

Truly it is written. One of my favorite passages, too.

Ecclesiastes 1-9



Now you know where that comes from, if you didn't already.

I used to own a 1968 Opel Rallye Kadett. Internal combustion, of course. I'll bet they had to beef up (or replace) the front spring, a transverse leaf spring in the stock suspension, to support the weight of all those lead-acid batteries.

The electronic control components would now be one-tenth or, more likely, one one-hundredth the size that they were in 1969.

Edited: I read the link, and I see that the same quote was used there already.

It remains odd if it was never patented. Killed off by the oil companies I would assume.

how alike the modern hybrid and these 1969 prototypes actually are. All we needed was battery technology and better automation.

If we'd had something close to today's NiMH or Li-ion batteries in 1970, I think the entire world would be very difficult today.

Hell, Ford and Edison designed an electric car back at the dawn of the automobile age, but what they came up with couldn't provide enough range on the lead-acid batteries they had to use. Large-format battery technology didn't change substantially from 1900 until the last 10 years or so.