London – VMI’s announcement of the invalidation of a Safe-Run patent has drawn a response from the Chinese tire-building machine manufacturer.

On 26 Oct, the Dutch company said that the Chinese Patent Review Board had invalidated a Safe-Run patent because it was based on prior art.

According to VMI, the patent in question was CN 202592763 and the date of the verdict was 22 Aug.

The ruling, said VMI, was the first in a number of filings seeking the invalidation of Safe-Run patents, as part of its ongoing legal actions against the Chinese company.

According to Safe-Run, however, the invalidated patent covered “old technology”, used in previous generations of Safe-Run machines and no longer part of its product portfolio.

The ruling, therefore, had “no influence to any business activities, because its contents are not related to current Safe-Run technologies or products,” the Chinese manufacturer said in a 28 Oct statement.

The patent invalidation, continued Safe-Run, “has no influence to any business activities, because its contents are not related to current Safe-Run technologies or products.

"Because of that there is also no connection with the VMI [legal actions] against Safe-Run.”