Goodyear Must Face Patent Claims Over Self-Inflating Tires

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. must defend a lawsuit alleging it lifted its patented self-inflating tire technology from another company’s trade secrets, the Federal Circuit ruled Feb. 22.

Coda Development S.R.O.'s patent and trade secret claims are supported by sufficient evidence and aren’t time-barred, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Feb. 22.

Coda Chief Executive Officer Frantisek Hrabal says in the suit that he invented self-inflating tire technology and that his company shared confidential information with General Motors after it approached Coda about teaming with Goodyear to commercialize it.

Goodyear stopped communicating with Coda for several ...