John Deere patent infringement suit.

[Binderoid]

Way back in my old Red Powers or Harvester Highlights, IH was battling JD over the 843 corn head. Isn't it true that IH already had a corn head on the 141 while Deere was just offering theirs to the public? My point being that 30 years have passed before this lawsuit... When do gathering chains and snapping rolls become old technology? How many innovations can you put on a corn head?  How long did it take John Deere to infringe on IH with the GP? 5-6 years? By the way, I never did hear how the lawsuit turned out. Last I heard, IH lost but they were going to appeal.

[Big Bud guy]

JD beat IH to the market with the first modern successful corn header.  But not by much.  I heard that JD was in turn getting sued by IH over their mold board plow trip design about the time the corn header fight was going on.  How many different ways can you design a mold board plow.  There are a lot of different subtle ways to design the same thing.  For example JD was the first on the market with a hay thrower and they had it patented pretty tight.  But NH and others soon started selling bale throwers that did not infringe on the patent even though they accomplished the same result.  JD used a swinging arm/pan and the other used continuous running belts or something along those lines.  Patents don't mean much.  Its how you defend them.  Ever looked at some of this old machinery and seen the fine print on the side saying "covered under the following patents" and then a lists bunch of patents.  Also, the GP was a 3 row tractor that straddled the row.  You know kinda like the Farmall A, Cub, and their successors that came later.  Plus there is a lot the general public doesn't know pertaining to who has been paying who on patent rights and royalties.  Did you know IH had to pay AC for use of their patents covering the B.  The auger bed introduced the JD 00 series was patented by JD.  IH did their damnest to not use it during testing of the AF but eventually had to use some form of it.  Don't know if any royalties were exchanged there.  Even old man McCormick was constantly suing others and getting sued just building something simple as a reaper.  He won some and lost some too. 

[DR.EVIL]

The corn head lawsuit was appealed by IH.  The federal court kicked the case back to the lower court for retrial and the lawsuit started over.  THREE TIMES.  Finally the legal costs got so high IH ended up agreeing to pay royalties to Deere, so much per row.

The issue was that Deere used hex shaped shafts to run the gearboxes that drove the snapping rolls and gathering chains.  IH used square shafts as I remember. Might have been reversed. Either shape made it cheap and easy to change the row width of the head.  Living in the Quad-Cities it was hard not to keep up with the trials.  Big front page articles at least weekly about how Deere was right and IH was in the wrong.

Finally took an owner of a little welding shop suing Deere over corn planter units to get Deere to play nice with others.  Guy's name was Jon Kinzenbaw.  He bought more and more row units to put on his planters until one year he tried to order more row units than Deere figured they would sell and all of a sudden none were available.  So he contacted Deere's suppliers and bought parts and built his own.  When the brown Chevy sedan full of Deere lawyers pulled in his yard and gave him the notice of their pending lawsuit Jon handed them His lawsuit. Jon won.

  The new way Deere buys patents and designs is to buy the company, assimilate them into one of their existing plants and close the old plant.  They are more interested in the intellectual property anymore than the real estate and brick/mortar.

[1206 4 ever]

How many years ago did WilRich come out with the Quad five field cultivator and now John Deeres newest model is the greatest thing on the marketp

[FarmallTom]

1 hour ago, DOCTOR EVIL said:

....

Finally took an owner of a little welding shop suing Deere over corn planter units to get Deere to play nice with others.  Guy's name was Jon Kinzenbaw.  He bought more and more row units to put on his planters until one year he tried to order more row units than Deere figured they would sell and all of a sudden none were available.  So he contacted Deere's suppliers and bought parts and built his own.  When the brown Chevy sedan full of Deere lawyers pulled in his yard and gave him the notice of their pending lawsuit Jon handed them His lawsuit. Jon won.

  The new way Deere buys patents and designs is to buy the company, assimilate them into one of their existing plants and close the old plant.  They are more interested in the intellectual property anymore than the real estate and brick/mortar.

Mr Kinzenbaw's lawyer in that suit (and presumably since) was his cousin.

I only happen to know this because he's now mine as well.

 

FT

[Reichow7120]

9 hours ago, Big Bud guy said:

JD beat IH to the market with the first modern successful corn header.  But not by much.  I heard that JD was in turn getting sued by IH over their mold board plow trip design about the time the corn header fight was going on.  How many different ways can you design a mold board plow.  There are a lot of different subtle ways to design the same thing.  For example JD was the first on the market with a hay thrower and they had it patented pretty tight.  But NH and others soon started selling bale throwers that did not infringe on the patent even though they accomplished the same result.  JD used a swinging arm/pan and the other used continuous running belts or something along those lines.  Patents don't mean much.  Its how you defend them.  Ever looked at some of this old machinery and seen the fine print on the side saying "covered under the following patents" and then a lists bunch of patents.  Also, the GP was a 3 row tractor that straddled the row.  You know kinda like the Farmall A, Cub, and their successors that came later.  Plus there is a lot the general public doesn't know pertaining to who has been paying who on patent rights and royalties.  Did you know IH had to pay AC for use of their patents covering the B.  The auger bed introduced the JD 00 series was patented by JD.  IH did their damnest to not use it during testing of the AF but eventually had to use some form of it.  Don't know if any royalties were exchanged there.  Even old man McCormick was constantly suing others and getting sued just building something simple as a reaper.  He won some and lost some too. 

John Deere and New Holland did get into a patent lawsuit over the pan bail thrower. For a few years in the 80's New Holland used a pan thrower on their square bailer. Then the suit happened and New Holland went back to the belts. 

We own a New Holland 311 bailer with a pan thrower on it. (Think it's a 86 model year). The model number on the thrower is 75. As much as it pains me to say it John Deere pan thrower design is better than the belt design.

[George 2]

44 minutes ago, Reichow7120 said:

John Deere and New Holland did get into a patent lawsuit over the pan bail thrower. For a few years in the 80's New Holland used a pan thrower on their square bailer. Then the suit happened and New Holland went back to the belts. 

We own a New Holland 311 bailer with a pan thrower on it. (Think it's a 86 model year). The model number on the thrower is 75. As much as it pains me to say it John Deere pan thrower design is better than the belt design.

Regarding the JD lawsuit in the mid 1970's: Here is the story from someone who knew one of the people testifying at the law suit. My friend worked for MF combines back then and Massey was invited to testify. This is what Massey's representative said to the judge in Chicago. He said that the first modern cornhead design was the Massey 43, 44, 63, 64, etc and it predated the JD production date by several years. He said Massey had proof that JD copied their design and that they didn't sue JD. He said that Massey had better use for scarce financial resources than paying lawyers to jawbone in a courtroom. He said they knew all manufacturers would adopt the low angle rolls and sheet metal design that they used sooner or later. During testimony it came out that one of the most damning things for IH was that the IH Design Engineer went down the road to the JD Tech Center at 3300 River Road in Moline. Once there he started measuring up the new JD head on display in detail. It took him several hours. All the while the JD security camera had him in focus and recorded the whole episode.

The other pertinent piece of info was that after arguing for several years and 1980 fast approaching the settlement was made. Yes, IH paid for a short while. However, the next year IH introduced the 900 series corn heads and their engineering had redesigned the drives to avoid having to pay JD any royalties. However, other aspects of that corn head design were problematic (gearboxes) and everyone of them had to be recalled to modify the gear boxes after Case IH took over in 1985. The mods were done and these mods updated the 900 series heads to the 1000 corn head design. The  very successful 1000 corn head was introduced in 1986 and continued until production was stopped in 2000.   

[DR.EVIL]

1 hour ago, FarmallTom said:

Mr Kinzenbaw's lawyer in that suit (and presumably since) was his cousin.

I only happen to know this because he's now mine as well.

 

FT

I have a cousin that's a lawyer too!

I forget where I read it, maybe on Farm Toy Collector of all places,  but I read Jon's story of that whole ordeal.

Good friend of mine went to college with Jon's daughter.  Buddy got the Ten Dollar tour from Jon one day.

[Rawleigh99]

1 hour ago, FarmallTom said:

Mr Kinzenbaw's lawyer in that suit (and presumably since) was his cousin.

I only happen to know this because he's now mine as well.

 

FT

Cousin or lawyer?  LOL!

[FarmallTom]

1 minute ago, Rawleigh99 said:

Cousin or lawyer?  LOL!

LOL - good one.

Lawyer; not cousin!

 

FT

[jass1660]

2 hours ago, DOCTOR EVIL said:

The corn head lawsuit was appealed by IH.  The federal court kicked the case back to the lower court for retrial and the lawsuit started over.  THREE TIMES.  Finally the legal costs got so high IH ended up agreeing to pay royalties to Deere, so much per row.

The issue was that Deere used hex shaped shafts to run the gearboxes that drove the snapping rolls and gathering chains.  IH used square shafts as I remember. Might have been reversed. Either shape made it cheap and easy to change the row width of the head.  Living in the Quad-Cities it was hard not to keep up with the trials.  Big front page articles at least weekly about how Deere was right and IH was in the wrong.

Finally took an owner of a little welding shop suing Deere over corn planter units to get Deere to play nice with others.  Guy's name was Jon Kinzenbaw.  He bought more and more row units to put on his planters until one year he tried to order more row units than Deere figured they would sell and all of a sudden none were available.  So he contacted Deere's suppliers and bought parts and built his own.  When the brown Chevy sedan full of Deere lawyers pulled in his yard and gave him the notice of their pending lawsuit Jon handed them His lawsuit. Jon won.

  The new way Deere buys patents and designs is to buy the company, assimilate them into one of their existing plants and close the old plant.  They are more interested in the intellectual property anymore than the real estate and brick/mortar.

IH 800 series heads up used hex shafts.

[DR.EVIL]

• George - I remember delivering a package or two to that Deere Tech Center at 3300 River Drive in 1978 when I drove for UPS. It really wasn't a place open to the general public. They would have the odd piece of equipment setting out from time to time.  Place was more of a "Think Tank" as opposed to IH's Engineering Center at Hinsdale.
• I think that building at 3300 River Drive is no longer there.  Moline has moved the main road off the river and extended the River front park into East Moline where the E. Moline plant was.  The last of that plant was loaded up in dump trucks in 2005 and hauled away.  Son played soccer in about 1986-'87 where Deere's iron foundry used to be in Silvis, I'll.  The Moline I-Wireless center, former The MARK Auditorium, used to be part of JD Plow Planter.  Millions and millions of square feet of manufacturing space has been vacated by Deere over the years in the Q-C's.

[Big Bud guy]

2 hours ago, Reichow7120 said:

John Deere and New Holland did get into a patent lawsuit over the pan bail thrower. For a few years in the 80's New Holland used a pan thrower on their square bailer. Then the suit happened and New Holland went back to the belts. 

We own a New Holland 311 bailer with a pan thrower on it. (Think it's a 86 model year). The model number on the thrower is 75. As much as it pains me to say it John Deere pan thrower design is better than the belt design.

I wouldn't know anything about bale throwing because out west we use NH bale wagons.  I would have thought the original patents would have expired by that time.  But like I said earlier we really don't know all details of these patents and who is paying who and so on.  Heck I heard from JR Hobbs Ford actually had to pay JD a royalty for every SOS transmission made during the 60s.

[560Dennis]

Some of what I know about about a patent . Once a idea is introduce to the public if it does not have a current patent it become open for anyone to use. I'm amaze about all the issues that IH had with patents . But that business.  I don't think they were able to sell in Texas till 1935 becuase of some legal technically . Anyway good topic for the discussion 

[Big Bud guy]

7 minutes ago, 560Dennis said:

Some of what I know about about a patent . Once a idea is introduce to the public if it does not have a current patent it become open for anyone to use. I'm amaze about all the issues that IH had with patents . But that business.  I don't think they were able to sell in Texas till 1935 becuase of some legal technically . Anyway good topic for the discussion 

I think that was part of the anti trust lawsuits.  IH was barred from a few states but that was early on within 10-15 years of the formation of IH.  

[George 2]

5 hours ago, DOCTOR EVIL said:

• George - I remember delivering a package or two to that Deere Tech Center at 3300 River Drive in 1978 when I drove for UPS. It really wasn't a place open to the general public. They would have the odd piece of equipment setting out from time to time.  Place was more of a "Think Tank" as opposed to IH's Engineering Center at Hinsdale.
• I think that building at 3300 River Drive is no longer there.  Moline has moved the main road off the river and extended the River front park into East Moline where the E. Moline plant was.  The last of that plant was loaded up in dump trucks in 2005 and hauled away.  Son played soccer in about 1986-'87 where Deere's iron foundry used to be in Silvis, I'll.  The Moline I-Wireless center, former The MARK Auditorium, used to be part of JD Plow Planter.  Millions and millions of square feet of manufacturing space has been vacated by Deere over the years in the Q-C's.

In 1980 the main lobby at 3300 River Road was used to showcase JD products. I know since I toured 3300 River Road that summer shortly after my friend told me about the Massey testimony. And what do you think was sitting out on prominent display? Why a JD 643 corn head of course. I would suspect IH engineers had been told by then to stay away from that place!!! 

Doc: Are you saying the JD combine plant in East Moline is no longer there? If so where is it now?

[DR.EVIL]

No, Deere Harvester is still there.  The IH East Moline plant was leveled, loaded up and hauled away.  That was late summer of 2006, not 2005 like I said earlier.  But that didn't happen overnight.

That UPS route was one of my favorite city routes, very little residential delivery, about 99.9% business,  ran from Farmall in Rock Island all the way to the IH E. Moline plant but didn't include the combine plant.  Included the used car lots on 4th Avenue though.  Lots of businesses right around the I-74 bridge too.  I remember one day I made UPS a couple Bucks.  I delivered about 600 packages and picked up almost 1200!  American Air Filter and Desaulners Printing buried me!  My 8-cube package car was cram-packed full!

[Ihfan4life]

In regards to the bale throwers, Deere's pan style  being better than NH belt style, I would argue against that! I know I could stack the bales in a wagon with the NH kicker, good luck doing that with the pan kicker! 

Sid

[Reichow7120]

2 hours ago, Ihfan4life said:

In regards to the bale throwers, Deere's pan style  being better than NH belt style, I would argue against that! I know I could stack the bales in a wagon with the NH kicker, good luck doing that with the pan kicker! 

Sid

We never stack the wagons for one thing. One person bailing and 2 of us unloading at the barn is how we operate. If you have someone stacking the wagons after the thrower to me it defeats the purpose of the thrower. You might as well have a slide and stack that way. And with the electric over hydraulic distance and tilt of the basket we've gotten pretty good at leaving no space unfilled. 

For the belt throwers those belts are spinning no mater what so you have that wear on the belts and rollers where as the pan thrower just activates when the bail is on the pan and hits the trip paw. The other thing my Dad talks about from the early version of the belt throwers is the tendency for them to burn the twine if in light hay or if your turning on the headlands. If you were in light hay and it wasn't able to get to the point of the thrower grabbed the bail and ejected it, those belts sat there like a belt sander and rubbed the twine of until it broke. Same thing applied when nothing was in the bailer to continue the bail out the back. You just had to remember to shut the PTO off at the end of each pass so you didn't sand the twine off and then remember to restart the PTO when starting the next pass. Now maybe they're different now but those early experiences soured Grandpa and Dad on belt throwers.

[Fred B]

i don't remember the details but it seems jd bought paddle dirt scrapers from hancock in lubbock tx , for a while, then just cut out hancock, and built it themselves. also there was the law suit where jd tried to patent the color combo of green and yellow, when oliver had been using it for years.

 

[Big Bud guy]

2 minutes ago, Fred B said:

i don't remember the details but it seems jd bought paddle dirt scrapers from hancock in lubbock tx , for a while, then just cut out hancock, and built it themselves. also there was the law suit where jd tried to patent the color combo of green and yellow, when oliver had been using it for years.

 

Cutting the supplier out is very common.  That's how IH got started in the tractor business.  I'll have to look it up but I think the reason JD dropped Hancock was because of quality issues.  

[Ihfan4life]

10 hours ago, Reichow7120 said:

We never stack the wagons for one thing. One person bailing and 2 of us unloading at the barn is how we operate. If you have someone stacking the wagons after the thrower to me it defeats the purpose of the thrower. You might as well have a slide and stack that way. And with the electric over hydraulic distance and tilt of the basket we've gotten pretty good at leaving no space unfilled. 

For the belt throwers those belts are spinning no mater what so you have that wear on the belts and rollers where as the pan thrower just activates when the bail is on the pan and hits the trip paw. The other thing my Dad talks about from the early version of the belt throwers is the tendency for them to burn the twine if in light hay or if your turning on the headlands. If you were in light hay and it wasn't able to get to the point of the thrower grabbed the bail and ejected it, those belts sat there like a belt sander and rubbed the twine of until it broke. Same thing applied when nothing was in the bailer to continue the bail out the back. You just had to remember to shut the PTO off at the end of each pass so you didn't sand the twine off and then remember to restart the PTO when starting the next pass. Now maybe they're different now but those early experiences soured Grandpa and Dad on belt throwers.

What I meant was you can accurately place bales in the wagon with JUST the thrower, NOT by hand stacking

Have you ever fought a JD kicker when it doesn't work!? I learned a new language doing that

Sid

[Reichow7120]

As I said above, we're pretty good at placing the bales where we want them with ours. 

We've only had 2 major problems with the pan thrower on our New Holland. One was the fault of a idiot engineer. Our bailer is a self contained hydraulic system. In the hydraulic reservoir is a hydraulic filter that is supposed to be removed and be cleaned. Well when they built the thrower they had a bad batch of filters. We installed it on our bailer and went to bale and boom the hydraulic screen self destructed. Here is where things get stupid. Dad got a new filter to put in the tank. He couldn't get the base of the filter off the threads where you screw it on. He went back to the dealer and they found out that the factory had put loctite on the threads of a cleanable filter. The only way to get the remains of the filter out was heat it til the loctite broke down and then you could thread it off.

The other one was on the cylinder of ours is a spring that takes some of the shock out of the trip motion. I blew that spring apart after 25 years of use. I couldn't get the spring that day as it was a Saturday. We ended up bailing it on the ground and picking it up. Other than that the thrower has been pretty trouble free. Better than the belt one before it.

May I ask, what problems did you have with your thrower?

[Ihfan4life]

I've had all the issues you can about think of with the JD thrower! But to be honest it was probably plumb wore out. 

Ive rewelded the pan pivots, put a new spring in the cylinder on top , replaced the hydraulic pump, but probably the biggest problem was the valve body was just wore out! 

That was the hardest one to diagnose as you wouldn't think a valve body wouldn't wear out but it did.

Finally solved my issues by buying a new/used 42 thrower and now enjoy baling hay again!

Sid

[redneckchevy9]

On 4/11/2017 at 7:14 AM, DOCTOR EVIL said:

Finally took an owner of a little welding shop suing Deere over corn planter units to get Deere to play nice with others.  Guy's name was Jon Kinzenbaw.  He bought more and more row units to put on his planters until one year he tried to order more row units than Deere figured they would sell and all of a sudden none were available.  So he contacted Deere's suppliers and bought parts and built his own.  When the brown Chevy sedan full of Deere lawyers pulled in his yard and gave him the notice of their pending lawsuit Jon handed them His lawsuit. Jon won.

  The new way Deere buys patents and designs is to buy the company, assimilate them into one of their existing plants and close the old plant.  They are more interested in the intellectual property anymore than the real estate and brick/mortar.

I believe this was discussed on here also.

https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/12094-the-rear-fold-planter-and-the-battle-that-ensued