Provisur’s Meat-Slicer Patent Trial Win Axed by Federal Circuit

The Federal Circuit nixed a $10.5 million Missouri patent jury verdict Wednesday, along with findings allowing for a doubling of the damages Weber Inc. owed to rival meat slicer-maker Provisur Technologies Inc.

The appeals court ruled one of the three patents—which accounted for $3 million of the verdict—wasn’t infringed by Weber’s SmartLoader meat and cheese-slicing machine. The machine’s default position differed from the technological approach of Provisur’s US Patent No. 7,065,936, and the patent owners attempts to show it “could be reprogrammed” through its expert Keith Vorst were unsuccessful, Judge Kimberly A. Moore wrote in a precedential opinion for ...