Lenzing wins lyocell patent judgment

Pulp & Paper, Sep 1997 by Drobesh, David

Austria-based Lenzing AG has won a round in a long-running patent dispute with U.K.-based Courtaulds plc regarding a step in the process of manufacturing lyocell fiber. Reversing an earlier decision in favor of Courtaulds, a federal appeals court in Washington D.C.,reinstated the patent and sent the case back to a New York district court for trial on a four-year-old infringement suit against Courtaulds. Lenzing had charged Courtaulds with infringing the patent at its lyocell plant in Mobile,Ala.a charge Courtaulds denied while alleging the patent was invalid. Lyocell is spun from a solution of cellulose in an organic solvent and water; Lenzing said the patent relates to the preparation of the spinning solution, describing it as "a key step" in the production of the fiber. Both companies have filed a number of patent applications in connection with their lyocell technologies. However, Courtaulds said it is at an "advanced" stage of negotiating crosslicensing agreements "which would allow both parties to develop the product to the maximum potential." Last year, satisfying neither company, the European Patent Office said a particular lyocell process could not be patented.

The margarine and pulp and paperrelated worlds have taken a geographic leap in the evolution of their unlikely alliance. McNeil Consumer Products Co. acquired from Finland's Raisio Group the U.S. distribution license of its cholesterolreducing foodstuffs-foodstuffs that use byproducts of pulp (and vegetable oil) production. Pine pulp's tall oil is used to produce sterol, which is used to produce stanol ester, which is used to produce Benecol, Raisio's fast-selling cholesterolblocking margarine. McNeil is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, better known in the pulp and paper industry as a converter for nonwovens and absorbent products.