Chevron Crushes Oil Composition Patent in Patent Board Fight

Chevron Oronite Co. LLC convinced a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal to cancel claims in a lubricating oil patent owned by a company that sued it for patent infringement.

Twenty claims in Infineum USA LP’s U.S. Patent No. 6,723,685 are invalid because they were covered by prior inventions, including a Japanese patent application and a published research paper, the agency’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled Nov. 6.

The ruling is a win for Chevron in its bid to fend off Infineum’s 2018 complaint for allegedly infringing the patent with its additive lubricating oil packages. The U.S. District Court ...