Actions for patent infringement and patent impeachment involving three patents. The Excalibre parties were the plaintiffs in the patent impeachment action and the defendants in the patent infringement action brought by the API parties. The API patents all related to a torque anchor tool designed to prevent the rotation of a rotary pump stator that was part of a progressing cavity pump system designed to extract oil from subterranean reservoirs. The Excalibre parties manufactured and sold Centralized Torque Anchors (CTA Torque Anchors). In the patent impeachment action, the Excalibre parties claimed that each of the API patents was invalid because of inutility, anticipation or obviousness, and because claim 1 of one patent failed to recite a means to actuate the jaw and was, therefore, broader than the invention made and was inoperable. The Excalibre parties also brought a claim for damages under s. 7(a) of the Trade-marks Act on the basis that the API parties damaged the Excalibre parties' business relations through false and misleading statements made in letters by API counsel sent to Excalibre's customers indicating that the CTA Torque Anchors breached the API patents. In the infringement action, the API parties asserted that various versions of a torque anchor sold by the Excalibre parties infringed the API patents.
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