Toyota loses bid to end hybrid patent dispute

Toyota’s U.S. arm has lost its bid to dismiss a patent-infringement claim on its gasoline/electric hybrid technology from Florida-based Paice LLC. A judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. denied Toyota’s request to end the case brought by Paice. The Florida-based company has similar claims on-going with Ford, which licenses its hybrid technology with Toyota precisely to avoid such issues. Paice won an earlier case, leaving Toyota to pay royalties to the company. Paice, which stands for Power-Assisted Internal Combustion Engines, claims Toyota is infringing a patent it owns in its torque distribution to a car’s wheels from both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine. Toyota had tried to argue that the Paice patent is invalid because that issue has been resolved in court. Paice won a case against Toyota and it was upheld on appeal. The case involved earlier versions of the Prius and Highlander hybrids. (May 28, 2010)