Unilin’s Patent Protection Extended in U.S & Canad

Wielsbeke, Belgium, January 11—-The Unilin Group said that the Canadian Patent Office on November 2, 2004, granted its first patent, CA 2226286, on glueless clic-systems for flooring applications. The company said the patent offers the same protection as its earlier granted US equivalent US 6390 836 and protects gluefree joints which have pretension and gluefree joints which allow to be installed by angling on the long side and by sliding on the short side. Based on this US patent, the Unilin Group recently launched legal proceedings against Quality Craft. The now granted Canadian patent brings the Unilin group the means to enforce its patent rights also in Canada. The Unilin Group also said the United States Patent Office has issued four important notices of allowance; the snap, the pretension, the clearances and the hook. A notice of allowance can be compared with a Druckexamplar in Europe and means that the examiner agrees with the protection claimed, according to Unilin. It is expected that the official grant will follow the next weeks. The SNAP patent protects a gluefree system for joining MDF/HDF based flooring panels which can snap together. The PRETENSION patent protects gluefree systems for joining flooring panels with pretension. The CLEARANCES patent protects a gluefree system for joining flooring panels and is especially directed to clearances (or chambers) in the joined profiles. The HOOK patent protects clic-systems for the gluefree joining of laminate flooring panels where the tongue has an upwardly directed portion to lock the panels together.