I looked up the patents...
Joan mentioned these patents that are held by AIRP:
4,872,558; 4,874,093; 4,918,904; 4,949,530; and 5,272,856
The most recent is apparently for the AirBox packaging, though the rest are similar. Here's the abstract from patent number 5,272,856:
Inventors: Pharo; Daniel A. (Valencia, CA).
Assignee: Air Packaging Technologies, Inc. (Valencia, CA).
Awarded: December 28, 1993
" A flexible, inflatable packaging device is adapted to enclose and protect an article during shipping and the like. The packaging device has an inlet valve for selectively admitting air to inflate the packaging device to protect an enclosed article against rough handling during shipping and the like and an aperture that can be selectively sealed to retain the inflation air or unsealed to release the inflation air to deflate the packaging device to enable removal of the article from the packaging device and compact storage of the packaging device before and after shipping. The packaging device can be inflated and deflate a plurality of times, thereby enabling reuse of the packaging device for shipping a plurality of articles in succession."
The other patents Joan mentioned are all similar. There are also several more patents issued to Daniel Pharo and assigned to AIRP. It seems that Mr. Pharo has spent most of the last decade patenting air-filled packaging.
It appears from the patent literature that there are many expired patents for packaging techniques which are substantially similar, but differ in detail from the AIRP patented packages. It would not be difficult for other companies to either use a non-protected package design, or patent their own "improvement" on AIRP's design.
Hence, AIRP's success or failure will not depend on their patent position, but rather on how many bags they sell to customers. If they can keep MOT and others happy with their product and prices, they could sell a bunch of them. If 3M decides to enter the delicate goods packaging market, AIRP may face some tough competition.
BTW - patents with numbers lower than 4,000,000 have expired, and the newest patents are numbered near 5,500,000.
-bob mackey
bmackey@ucsd.edu |
