Packaging Company Allegedly Infringes On Bottle Design Patents

Case Overview

This case involves a packaging company that alleged patent infringement by another bottling company. The plaintiff company held a patent on a mold design for plastic bottles as well as patents on their bottle ribbing and base design. An expert in bottle mold design and engineering was sought to review the case and comment on whether the defendant company infringed on the other company’s patents.

Questions to the Manufacturing expert and their responses

Please describe projects that you have worked on as they relate to plastic bottle and mold design.

I have 35+ years of experience with PET and helping clients protect intellectual property with patents and trade secrets. I have worked on patent infringement matters as an expert witness and have worked on cases involving plastic packaging and recycling companies. I served as an expert on a case involving base designs for all forms of PET blow molded containers. Additionally, I hold several patents for plastic packaging.

How might you go about determining whether patent infringement has occurred?

I would first want to review the patents and the drawings to compare them to the products. I would be comfortable commenting on potential patent infringements in this case.

About the expert

This expert has over 35 years of experience in plastic molding and PET packaging, specializing in injection and blow molding. He earned his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toledo and went on to work in the Plastics and Closures Group at Owens-Illinois, Inc as an Engineer, before moving into his role as their Group Supervisor. At Owens-Illinois, he managed the pilot plant for making the first PET beverage bottle to the full-scale production line and specialized in creating molds, resins for production, and developed a reheating system to increase production output of blow molders, which earned him two patents on novel bottle finish and closures and another patent on a heating system for blow molding. After almost a decade with Owens-Illinois, he went on to serve as the Vice President of Product Development at Plastic Technologies Inc., where he managed the company's analytical testing service. After leaving Plastic Technologies in 2017, this expert went into private consulting in plastic packaging and manufacturing in Ohio.