Safedriving 24/7, the Skisaver manufacturer, marketed & sold Skisavers in the USA in Dec 2015
Carbide Savers filed for a patent on April 7, 2016
Sorry, but you can't patent a product that is already marketed and offered for sale. This is called Prior Art.
An applicant will be entitled to a patent unless “the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.” (Emphasis added.) It is worth noting that the definition of invalidating prior art has therefore
expanded to include the sale or public use of the claimed invention even outside of the United States.
As Carbide Savers was told in a letter from the Safedriving lawyers, Safedriving has in Sweden since May 2015, in Canada since November 2016 and in the U.S. since December 2015 marketed and sold Skisavers. Safedriving is currently selling Skisaver Flex, which is an updated and improved version of the Skisaver.
Safedriving denies that its product is infringing U.S. patent No. 9925995 B2. When the Carbide Savers patent was filed the Skisaver was already available to the public and they also had knowledge about this.
In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new, which provides that an invention
cannot be patented if the claimed invention was, amongst other, in public use, on sale, or
otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (see
35 U.S.C. 102 Conditions for patentability; novelty).