The ITC trial
During one of the numerous Pittsburgh Conferences that we attended as exhibitors our booth was visited by Kent Stewart. I remember that we had purchased a sampler from Hook & Tucker in Great Britain and connected it to our FIA instrument. This combination was now displayed. Kent said suddenly: “now it is infringement”. I did not pay so much attention to his comment since I was fully aware of his so-called FIA patent and the apparatus claims therein (I was more concerned about the method claims in that patent). The use of a sampler was not included in any of the apparatus claims. Further, we had been several years on the market with our FIA instruments without any objection from his side, on the contrary, rather (my interpretation, however).
Some time after this episode our US sales office was contacted by a customer who insisted to have a sampler included in the requested FIA quotation. We hesitated first but the customer was very persistent, so, finally, we gave him an offer. This was a trap set by the International Trade Commission (ITC). In 1983, all Tecator, Pernovo and Bifok companies were urged to submit all correspondence related to FIA to the ITC. The reason was our alleged infringement of the Stewart patent.
