Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991                   TAG: 9103090203
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GTE PRODUCTS AWARDED $5.3 MILLION IN PATENT SUIT

The suit, in U.S. District Court, was over patent rights for a carbide tip in a cutting bit used to remove asphalt on highways. The item is made at the American Mine Tool Co. plant, a division of GTE Valenite in Chilhowie. GTE contended successfully that its patent was being infringed by Kennametal Inc. of Latrobe, Pa.

After about eight hours, the jury found that GTE's patent is valid. Kennametal said it will appeal the award. It took the companies two weeks to present the case in court.

GTE initially sought damages of $40 million in the suit, which was filed in 1985.

The suit was over infringement of rights on seven tools covered by the patent. In the hearing, Kennametal spokesmen said three of the tools were infringed if the patent were valid but it contested four others.

The jury said the four contested tools were equivalent to GTE tools and it found there was evidence of willful infringement by Kennametal between February 1985 and March 1987.

The patent was issued in 1985 but it was tied up for re-examination in the U.S. Patent Office for several years at the request of Kennametal. The office rejected the request and refused to set aside the patent in 1989.

GTE also has sent notices of infringement to two or three other companies, pending the results of this case, according to William B. Poff, a Roanoke lawyer who represented the company.

Kennametal said the patent was not valid because the inventor did not reveal the best mode of implementing his invention.

Kennametal said the bits are about 5 percent of its total sales but the company has about 65 percent of the market.