The big bout: Manitowoc Vs Sany America
Sany is being investigated for patent infringement of Manitowoc’s revolutionary VPC technology for crawler cranes, as well as theft of trade secrets, through its recruitment of engineer John Lanning, Stian Overdahl writes.
Manitowoc is seeking the banning of the importation of the SCC8500 and components into the US.
Sany is being investigated for patent infringement of Manitowoc’s revolutionary VPC technology for crawler cranes, as well as theft of trade secrets, through its recruitment of engineer John Lanning, Stian Overdahl writes.
It may sound like something out of a corporate espionage whodunit, the case of an unscrupulous high-ranking engineer and his trade secrets lured away to a rival company, who subsequently are able to bring the product to market even before the company itself who developed it is able.
But at least that is what Manitowoc alleges is the case, with former-employee John M Lanning playing the role of the engineer, Sany the rival company, and the SCC8500 crawler crane the product bought to market, for which Sany now faces a patent infringement investigation by the US International Trade Commission, as well as a federal lawsuit filed by Manitowoc in Delaware, to be tried by jury.
Ultimately Manitowoc is seeking the banning of the importation of the SCC8500 and components into the United States, destruction of all existing models in Sany’s possession, and awarding of damages (in triple) for loss of market share and sales, as well as being awarded its legal fees and costs.
The case revolves around the variable position counterweight (VPC) technology, which Manitowoc holds two patents for, and which was first introduced on its super-size crawler the ‘31000’ at Conexpo in 2008, which has a maximum lift capacity of 2,300t.
The VPC system allows the counterweight to move backwards from the centre of the crane, increasing the load moment for heavy lifts without the use of extra weights, as well as being moved to the centre of the crane when it is not under load, rather than stacking extra weights at the front to balance it. The VPC is connected solely to the carbody of the crane, floating, which reduces the amount of ground preparation needed, and can allow the crane to crawl when carrying a heavy load, problematic when using a weight trailer.
And while the VPC has been seen on Manitowoc’s largest lattice boom crawler, the court documents reveal that the company is working on at least two smaller crawlers, which will utilise a version of the technology called transformable VPC, allowing the cranes to be set up in completely different configurations, also reconfiguring the VPC system in each case, for greater job flexibility and multi-purpose utilisation.
Manitowoc says that it has been working on the transformable VPC technology since 2008, and still hasn’t bought a product to market, perhaps since the majority of its focus in that time was on the development of the 31000, built to supply anticipated demand in the burgeoning nuclear power plant construction sector.
Meanwhile the figure of John Lanning emerges as the significant player in the legal drama. Lanning is listed as an inventor on one of the two patents for VPC Manitowoc holds, and worked extensively on the patenting processes and overall design, but he was poached by Sany and began working for the company in January 2010, as its head of global product development for crawler cranes.
Sany provocatively hung a giant poster of Lanning wearing a Sany-logo hat at their booth at Conexpo in 2011, over which a news report at the time noted Manitowoc was “not smiling”. And while company-hopping is not uncommon in the construction equipment industry, Manitowoc alleges that Sany specifically “targeted” Lanning and offered him a “substantial salary increase”, knowing him to be in possession of knowledge of the VPC and transformable VPC technologies, as well as trade secrets about how the transformable VPC could be used commercially to design a crane for current market requirements.
Sany America has launched a number of crawler cranes for the North American markets, but it is the 499 tonne (550 US ton) capacity SCC8500 that has provoked the legal case.
The crawler employs what Sany calls an Auto Counterbalance Equalization (ACE) System, which uses hydraulic cylinders to adjust the position of the counterweights. This can also be supplemented with the ‘Ultra Lift’ counterweight tray extension, for placement of additional counterweights, and with a second pair of hydraulic cylinders the counterweight beam is extendable 16m from the back of the crane.
The model was launched in the North America markets in March this year, and
