A Michigan District Court has ruled that SMR Automotive Systems failed to show that Magna Mirrors of America engaged in inequitable conduct during recent proceedings. The ruling follows a favorable jury verdict for SMR with respect to patent applications related to a driver’s side mirror designed to reduce blind spots.
Magna brought the original suit against SMR, alleging that the latter’s blind spot mirror assemblies “infringed claims” on Magna’s patents. However, in December 2022, a jury found that wasn’t the case. The ruling in favor of SMR left its defense of inequitable conduct to be decided by the court.
According to the court’s statement of facts, SMR argues that Magna senior vice president Niall Lynam submitted false accusations to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) during the prosecution of the patents. SMR says those alleged false accusations were made “with the intent to deceive the PTO” and to circumvent objections from an examiner’s review of the patent applications.
At the heart of the issue are Lynam’s declarations to the examiner that he invented the products for which patents were submitted prior to June 13, 2002. SMR argued that Lynam did not invent a “thin glass element” recited in those claims until after that date. Lynam and Magan, on the other hand, say that the declarations omit reference to the thin-glass feature.
“Because Dr. Lynam’s … declarations do not take a position regarding whether he had conceived of the ‘thin glass’ species of the...
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