On June 1, Arctic Cat was awarded $15.5 million in a patent-infringement lawsuit that the company filed against Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP). A Florida jury found that the defendants committed willful infringement of two Arctic Cat patents for personal watercraft (PWC) technology.
The complaint, filed in the U.S District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleged that the companies marketed, promoted, offered for sale, sold and distributed Sea-Doo PWCs that infringe patents owned by competitor Arctic Cat.
The suit concerned a long-standing safety concern in the PWC industry: the inability to steer a PWC once the throttle is released, as is common in emergency situations, particularly for inexperienced riders. According to the complaint, Arctic Cat was responsible for originally developing a novel and effective off-throttle thrust mechanism to make PWC safer. The technology provides riders with temporary “steerable thrust” when the rider turns in off-throttle situations to help prevent fatalities and injuries from collisions. Arctic Cat representatives demonstrated the technology to the Coast Guard, representatives of BRP and others in the PWC industry in 1999 and 2000.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Arctic Cat patents for its novel off-throttle steering technology, entitled “Controlled Thrust Steering System for Watercraft."
The jury reached its verdict unanimously.
“We are incredibly pleased that the facts of this case were clear to the jury and that Arctic Cat today protected the IP it owns,” said Nicholas Boebel of Hagens Berman, lead counsel for Arctic Cat. “Arctic Cat worked hard to develop and protect its intellectual property and today its fight for the rights of its original and novel inventions has paid off.”
Hagens Berman co-counseled with Kutak Rock LLP on the suit.
"We are very pleased with the jury's findings, and all the hard work that they put into analyzing the factual issues in this case,” said Aaron Myers, a partner at Kutak Rock. "We believe the jury reached the right outcome based on the evidence that was presented at trial."
To get the latest in motorsports news delivered to your mailbox, subscribe to American Snowmobiler today!