ATV Track Assemblies Patents Invalid on the Facts

Camso Inc v Soucy International Inc 2019 FC 255 Locke J

2,372,949 / 2,388,294 / 2,822,562 / 2,825,509 / ATV Track Assemblies

Camso’s patents at issue in this case concerned ATV track assemblies. In a decision which turned on claim construction and the facts, Locke J held all the claims in issue (almost 250 different claims in three patents) to be invalid for anticipation and/or obviousness [442]. 

The aim of the invention was to provide an ATV track assembly that would be easy to steer especially on hard ground. This was accomplished by reducing the size of the track belt’s contact area with the ground, both longitudinally (along the length of the track) and transversely (across its width) [5]. A smaller contact patch makes it easier to pivot the track. The contact patch was reduced longitudinally by arranging the assembly so that the bottom run of the track belt is slightly curved from front to back, “so that it rises from the ground ahead of and behind the area of ground contact which bears the weight of the assembly and the ATV” [6]. It was reduced transversely by using rodless tracks which omitted the usual transverse stiffening rods [8].

Soucy had focused its defence on non-infringement, and consequently had argued for a narrow scope of claims, conceding the validity of many claims. The patentee, Camso, had argued for broader claim construction, in order to establish infringement: [330-32]. Camso largely prevailed on claim construction, but its victory was Pyrrhic, as the result was that the broad claims were invalid. The rodless track patents were anticipated by an early kit sold by another track assembly maker. The kit had not been particularly successful – it was not clearly established that any had actually been sold [318] – but it had been publicly displayed and promoted, and any skilled person would have readily recognized that the tracks were rodless [319]. The curved track assembly patents were anticipated by one of the earliest track assemblies ever commercially sold [357-59]. In effect, the inventors had rediscovered features that had been used in some very early track assemblies and then abandoned. Some of the many claims had additional features that were not anticipated, but these variants were obvious over the same prior art, or some additional prior art.