Essilor, VSP, Younger, and Indizen End Free-Form Progessives Lawsuit

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Essilor, VSP, Younger Optics, and Indizen Optical Technologies have settled their free-form progressive lawsuit. “A patent infringement case was filed by Essilor against VSP Optical Group on Feb 22, 2013 in the Texas Eastern District Court for infringing eyeglass lenses used to correct presbyopia and other disorders of accommodation. The other named defendants in this case were: Indizen Optical Technologies…and Younger Optics,” reports IPInsiders. “The patent involved in the suit is US6149271…The patent is currently assigned to Essilor International …The '271 patent claims progressive addition lenses and processes for making progressive addition lenses. The complaint alleged that Indizen Optical Technologies develops a lens design software [and that] IOT Futura and Younger Optics provides semi-finished lenses, both of which help in producing finished lenses manufactured by VSP, UNITY PLxpression lenses that infringe the '271 Patent. The complaint states that Indizen Optical Technologies and Younger Optics encouraged VSP to make such infringing lenses. …On Nov 13, Essilor filed stipulation of dismissal pursuant to which the Court ordered all the claims and counterclaims in this action to be dismissed with prejudice with each party bearing its own attorneys’ fees and costs.” Read more.

Patents and Trades Re-Examining Seiko's Patent for Freeform Lenses

Robert Shanbaum, president of Ocuco Inc., reports that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will begin the 20-month process of re-examining Seiko Epson's patent for freeform progressive lenses (6,019,470). “Historically, 22% of such re-examination proceedings result in all of the challenged patent’s claims being confirmed, but only 12% result in all claims being canceled.  In most cases, the patent’s claims are changed so as to avoid the questions raised in the re-examination request.” When Shanbaum initiated the request for re-examination a month ago, he said that he "was familiar with engineering projects back in the early 1990’s at both Gerber Optical and Coburn Optical, which had as their objective the production of back-surface progressives.  It struck me as absurd that Seiko Epson, or anyone else, could claim to have invented a category of lenses that we were feverishly trying to make years before they were allegedly invented.”

Seiko Epson filed the patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in December 2009. Its publication date was December of last year, which means a USPTO examiner began the next step of the approval process: reviewing the patent request. Also as of December, the application has been available for public review, as on this Google site. Therefore, this is precisely the time period for companies or individuals, as is the case of Ocuco, to issue challenges to the entire patent claims or portions of the claim. Read more.

VSP Optics Introduces New Digital Progressive

VSP Optics Group will add a new digital, N category progressive to its line of Unity Performance Optics. It is called Unity PLxpression with Cascade Technology.The lens will reportedly offer the wearer:

• Optimized viewing zones through variable base curve technology.
• Advanced position-of-wear customization.
• Improved cosmetics with thinner, flatter lenses.

Cascade Technology, a patented technology exclusive for the new lens, begins with a variable base curve blank. This allows for achieving what VSP says is an ideal curve at each point of the lens, which is different from standard freeform lens blanks that use a constant base curve throughout the lens. Read more.

GlobalEyeglasses Offers Free-Form Progressives

GlobalEyeglasses.com is now offering free form progressive lenses. The company claims that it " is overcoming the limitations of the traditional lens manufacturing process by incorporating advanced craftsmanship and deciding on an ideal or target optical performance for the lens design for the given prescription. As the frontrunner in this dynamic and intensely competitive industry, the company is minimizing the differences between the target optical and the actual optical performance of the design. Each lens is custom made and finely crafted based on the prescription given." Read more.