Lynn Alstadt and Ralph Fischer Secure an Affirmed Decision in Favor of Tube-Mac Industries at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

WASHINGTON - On March 15, 2024 the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the district court to correct inventorship of United States Patent No. 9,376,049 by adding firm clients Gary Mackay and Dan Hewson as joint inventors. 

Steve Campbell was the original, sole inventor named on the ’049 patent, which claims a container for transporting gaseous fluids. Campbell originally contracted with Composites Atlantic Ltd. (“Composites Atlantic”) to assist in fabrication of the claimed transportation vessels.  However, the resulting prototypes suffered from numerous problems, including slippage of the port boss on the vessel’s liner. The port boss is essentially a nozzle that is attached to the vessel that contains the gas to be transported.

Campbell then approached Gary Mackay to help fix the port boss/liner slippage problem. Over the next several months, Campbell, Mackay, and Hewson exchanged draft designs and components engineered to improve the port boss design. The issue on appeal involved the contributions made by Mackay and Hewson to the port boss claimed in independent claim 1 and the “compression and crimping” thereof in dependent claim 5.  Addressing that issue, the Court of Appeals decision says, “The record before us, including the Composites Atlantic report describing the problems with slippage of the port boss, the documented suggestions and contributions made by Mackay and Hewson, and the disclosures made in the ’049 patent, does not leave us with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made in concluding that Mackay and Hewson contributed significantly to the conception of the claimed invention. See Impax Lab’ys, 468 F.3d at 1375.  We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment that Mackay and Hewson should be listed as co-inventors on the ’049 patent.”