BlazeFrame Hits CEMCO over FAS Track

On Wednesday, October 31, 2012, BlazeFrame (plaintiff) recorded a suit against California Expanded Metal Products Co (CEMCO) (defendant) for patent infringement in the U.S District Court of Western Washington (case no.2:12-cv-01922).

BlazeFrame, a Washington based company, produces steel framing profiles/parts with intumescent composite materials that retard the spread of fires through structures. CEMCO is a manufacturer of cold-formed steel-framing and metal lath products.

The patents involved in this suit are listed below:

Patent No. Current Assignee (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database [[i]] )	Issue Date	Expiration Date[[ii]]	Title
US8056293 BlazeFrame	11/15/2011	08/22/2028	Head-of-Wall Fireblock Systems and Related Wall Assemblies
US8136314 BlazeFrame	03/20/2012	04/04/2028	Head-of-Wall Fireblock
US7814718 BlazeFrame	10/19/2010	04/04/2028	Head-of-Wall Fireblock

The above patents relate to fire retardant head-of-wall assemblies. According to the complaint, the defendant’s accused product FAS Track infringes the above patents. FAS Track as shown in Fig 1 is a header track used in a stud wall assembly. It is a plainly U-shaped top header track, with a web and flanges on opposite sides of the web, and has at least one strip of intumescent material coupled to the header track.

Fig 1 FAS Track

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[i]MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.

[ii]Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically
calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.

Tags: Alerts, Assignment, BlazeFrame, CEMCO, Estimator, Litigation, Maxval, Patent, Term