[ad_1]
Good Soaps has a patent on sustainable soap raw materials. Now a German company is claiming this for itself.
In May 2019, startup Good Soaps announced that it had won the Albert Koechlin Foundation environmental award. More awards and supporting contributions were added later, and the Lucerne soap company was recognized for its contribution to sustainability. It was considered a small sensation what its owner is said to have invented.
Sustainable cleaning products
Regine Schneider of Good Soaps claims to have developed a process by which soaps, detergents and other cleaning agents can be produced without palm oil and petroleum. Your company’s products are based solely on sustainable European products such as rapeseed or sunflower oil. That was long considered impossible in the industry. It was believed that such detergents would not clean well enough.
Palm and petroleum-free detergents, soaps and other cleaners – Good Soaps products are based on this idea. It is said that it was stolen.
Good soaps / bildmontage
The process was then registered as a patent. And now a dispute has broken out over this patent. The inventor is said to have stolen the idea for his innovation from the German company Werner & Mertz, which also owns the Frosch brand of cleaning agents. The case will be heard this Wednesday before the Federal Patent Court of St. Gallen.
Has everything just been stolen?
The German group is convinced that Regine Schneider took over the patent idea from Werner & Mertz when she was working for one of its associated companies about ten years ago. “It is not acceptable that we, as an original source of ideas, have to buy back our innovation if we want to make such detergents and cleaning agents ourselves,” says Edgar Endlein, head of research at Werner & Mertz.
The German group Werner & Mertz is best known for its Frosch brand cleaning and laundry detergents.
ZVG
He also questions the motives for the patent application in very cautious terms: “One may suspect that patent law is being misused here.” In other words: the patent should only have been applied for to make money from it, there should be no interest in developing and selling your own products. In technical parlance, you have a name for these companies: patent troll.
Inconsistencies in the patent application
In fact, there are some inconsistencies in the patent application for Regine Schneider’s innovation. For one thing, the patent was not filed by Schneider or her own Good Soaps company, but by a consultancy that, at first glance, has nothing to do with cleaning agents. On the other hand, Schneider does not want to be mentioned in the patent as an inventor.
This is unusual, confirms patent law expert Cyrill Rigamonti from the University of Bern. “Most of the time, inventors pride themselves on having contributed to technological development. Especially when it comes to sustainability. “
No Good Soaps Comments
Rigamonti, however, doubts Werner & Mertz’s patent troll theory. Trolls are usually companies that do not manufacture anything by themselves, but only make money by demanding their patents. “With this patent, however, the products are manufactured and sold through the Good Soaps company.”
More disputes between small and large companies
Good Soaps does not want to comment on the allegations and inconsistencies. This is too delicate so little before the negotiation, it is said on request.
In a few days, at the earliest, it will be clear who actually invented the sustainable cleaning agent. The sentence is made in writing and not on the day of the trial itself, and could also be referred to the federal court.
