Liebherr accuses Mannesmann Dematic of infringing its Telematik boom patents

Liebherr-Werk Ehingen has accused Mannesmann Dematic of infringing patents taken out to protect its Telematik boom technology on its telescopic cranes.

“In 1996 Liebherr, as the first manufacturer, basically changed telescoping technology with the newly developed single-cylinder telescopic boom, called Telematik, of the LTM 1160/2,” Liebherr Werk-Ehingen technical director Dr Ulrich Hamme told Cranes Today.

“Subsequently, various crane manufacturers tried to copy this telescoping technique. The copy of Mannesmann Dematic is called Unimec. With the Unimec system, Mannesmann Dematic infringes commercial property rights of Liebherr-Werk Ehingen.” Hamme said that the two companies planned to hold discussions over Liebherr’s allegation, “possibly in the presence of their respective patent attorneys”.

The mobile crane industry in Germany has been rife with rumour for months that Liebherr would seek to prevent Dematic shipping any more cranes with Unimec booms, including the new five-axle 100 tonner, the AC 100.

But Hamme would not disclose his next move, adding only: “At this stage we cannot make any statements concerning the future development of this open case.” Mannesmann Dematic pointed out that “no infringement proceeding is pending or announced by Liebherr to be launched up to this date” and said that it did not envisage legal proceedings.

“Mannesmann Dematic Cranes (MDC) is aware of Liebherr’s intellectual property rights. The parties are in friendly discussion whether or not a certain utility model of Liebherr could be read on MDC’s Unimec system. MDC is convinced that the matter can be settled amicably, especially since the validity of Liebherr’s utility model is at stake. Thus MDC does not see itself involved in an actual dispute with Liebherr.” Telematik is an automatic rapid-cycle telescoping system. It consists of a double-action telescoping ram, a pneumatic gripper interlocking system at the base of the hydraulic ram, pneumatic boom pins for interlocking the boom sections with one another internally and an electronic sensor system which links into the Liccon crane control system. The primary benefit is in boom weight reduction.