SawStop patent trade case against Bosch wins procedural ruling
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -  SawStop's case against Bosch over its use of flesh-sensing saw safety technology in the Reaxx jobsite saw won a procedural ruling from an administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission. SawStop filed a complaint last year before the ITC seeking to block Bosch from importing the saw from Germany.
 
The case relies on proving the Reaxx violates SawStop's technology patents. The U.S. Patent Nos. are 7,225,712; 7,600,455; 7,610,836; 7,895,927; 8,011,279; and 8,191,450. 
 
The ITC agreed to take up the SawStop case in August 2015. In the latest ruling, Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender sided with SawStop in responding to a request by Bosch's legal team for how the descriptions of the technology would be interpreted during hearings.
 

ARTICLE

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Pender said Bosch's “proposed construction improperly narrows the scope of the claims by importing limitations from the embodiments disclosed in the specification into the claims.” In other words, the judge ruled normal industry understandings of terminology should be used in explaining the case.

In effect, the ruling means that words used to explain the patents in dispute will be interpreted as a worker in a typical manufacturing operation might understand them, and not, as Bosch's lawyers asked, the “plain English meaning” of the words - an advantage to SawStop's case, according to analysts Eric Schweibenz and Tom Yebernetsky at IT337 LawBlog.com

IN THE SHOP

FDMC's Will Sampson test-drives the SawStop Jobsite Saw

From the initial introduction of the SawStop flesh-sensing safety system, I’ve been impressed. But I was even more impressed when I started using the saw.


SawStop filed its complaints on July 15, 2015, at the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court in Oregon against Robert Bosch GmbH of Germany and its U.S. subsidiary Robert Bosch Tool Corporation. The ITC, which has been widely used by U.S. wood products manufacturers against Chinese furniture dumping, will issue a ruling on the case based on whether five patents SawStop has named are being violated by Bosch.

Bosch Reaxx saw blade stopping mechanism
"As part of the lawsuit, SawStop is asking the ITC to exclude Bosch’s infringing table saws from entry into the United States, and to order Bosch to stop advertising and selling infringing products in the United States," Dr. Stephen Gass, SawStop’s president, said in announcing the ITC action last year. "A foreign corporation like Bosch, who takes advantage of the American patent system by filing multiple patent applications every day, should respect the patents awarded to others instead of relying on its size and financial resources to disregard those patents.”
 
SawStop technology stops and retracts the saw blade on contact with skin. Bosch first announced in March 2015 it would bring the Reaxx jobsite saw to market in Fall 2015. A recent search at Bosch's site for "Where to Buy" delivered one result, Ace Tools, with a price of $1,499 and availability estimated as April 2016.
 
 
Bosch says its Active Response Technology platform used in the Reaxx, was first launched on Bosch Brute Tough hammer drill/drivers to reduce the risk of injury to users by combining sensors and electronics with mechanical injury-prevention systems. Reaxx employs a two-shot cartridge that enables activation for two incidents before replacement is needed.
 
Once the stopping mechanism is triggered, the operator rotates the activation cartridge and resets the drop mechanism and the Reaxx table saw will resume operation. SawStop, which has been manufacturing the only blade-stopping saw technology on the market, introduced a jobsite version of its saw in March 2015, with Rockler and Woodcraft picking up distribution.
 

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