Automotive Technologies International, Inc. v. Delphi Corporation et al.

I'll research this case using multiple searches to verify the details.

Let me gather more on ATI's identity, the inventor David Breed, and the appeal outcome.

Let me verify the Federal Circuit outcome and any subsequent PTAB proceedings.

Case Overview and Background

Parties. The plaintiff, Automotive Technologies International, Inc. (ATI), is the patent-holding company of inventor David S. Breed, a prolific independent automotive-safety inventor (MIT-trained engineer; founder of Breed Corporation, whose ball-in-tube crash sensor was an early airbag trigger). Breed founded ATI in 1998; the company is based in Denville, N.J. (records also list Breed in Miami Beach, Fla.), and it is credited with roughly 400+ U.S. patents naming Breed. ATI is best characterized as an inventor-controlled, non-manufacturing licensing/assertion entity—not a university and not a classic "shell" PAE, but a company whose business is developing, patenting, and monetizing vehicle-safety and occupant-sensing technology (a 2015 MIT Technology Review profile notes ATI also ran R&D projects, e.g., vehicle wiring and mapping). Its litigation model was to assert a broad portfolio against the automotive industry. The defendants were Delphi Corporation and its affiliates (Delphi Automotive Systems, LLC; DPH Holdings Corp.; later Motors Liquidation Co. after Delphi's bankruptcy), the Tier-1 supplier that made the accused part, plus OEM customers that incorporated it into vehicles: Ford, General Motors, Nissan North America, Hyundai Motor America, Mercedes-Benz USA, Volvo Cars of North America, and Fuji Heavy Industries USA (Subaru). ATI's counsel was Sommers Schwartz, P.C. (Andrew Kochanowski, Lisa Rycus Mikalonis); Delphi was represented by Kenyon & Kenyon (John R. Hutchins, per Law.com).

Accused technology and patents. The accused product was Delphi's Passive Occupant Detection System ("PODS")—a seat-mounted bladder/pressure sensor plus belt-tension sensor and electronic control unit that classifies the front passenger seat (empty / adult / child) and signals the airbag control module whether to deploy or suppress the airbag, enabling compliance with the FMVSS 208 "advanced airbag" rules. ATI's operative complaint identified specific vehicles, e.g., the 2005 Cadillac Escalade ('516/'080), 2006 Volvo C70, 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe, 2008 Mercedes C-Class, and 2007 Subaru Forester ('945). Four patents were ultimately litigated (ATI dropped three others): U.S. 6,833,516 ("Apparatus and Method for Controlling a Vehicular Component," issued Dec. 21, 2004)—seat/occupant sensing used to control a vehicle component such as an airbag; U.S. 6,484,080 ("Method and Apparatus for Controlling a Vehicular Component," issued Nov. 19, 2002, reexamined and confirmed)—occupant-sensed control of a vehicular component; U.S. 7,243,945 ("Vehicular Component Adjustment System and Method")—a bladder-based seat pressure sensor feeding a control module that decides airbag deployment; and U.S. 7,407,029 ("Weight Measuring Systems and Methods for Vehicles")—occupant weight measurement for vehicle systems. All four share Breed's large continuation-in-part family and a common priority chain reaching back to the mid-1990s.

Procedural posture and venue. The dispute was litigated in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division (Detroit), before Judge Robert H. Cleland, under No. 2:08-cv-11048, consolidated with No. 2:10-cv-10647 (Fed. Cir. appeal No. 2011-1292). The docket history is a two-front war: ATI sued Delphi's OEM customers (GM, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and others) in the Northern District of Texas in February 2008, while Delphi filed a declaratory-judgment action in E.D. Mich. seeking to invalidate the patents; the Texas case was consolidated into the Michigan action (Law.com; Bankruptcy Court/ABI summary of Delphi Corp. v. Auto Techs. Int'l, July 25, 2008). Note a minor sourcing ambiguity: the case metadata lists ATI as plaintiff in the March 11, 2008 E.D. Mich. filing, whereas contemporaneous reporting describes the Michigan case originating as Delphi's DJ action—the consolidated caption (per the notice of appeal) names ATI as "Plaintiff/Counter-Defendant" and Delphi et al. as "Defendants/Counter-Plaintiffs." Venue mattered because Detroit is the center of the U.S. auto industry (Delphi was a Troy, Michigan supplier; several OEMs and ATI's prior ATI I litigation against Delphi were already in E.D. Mich.), giving the court deep familiarity with the technology and making it a natural forum for a case effectively aimed at the entire domestic auto supply chain.

Why it is notable. After a Markman order (Sept. 11, 2009), the court granted six defense summary-judgment motions on March 9, 2011 (Dkt. 146 opinion; Dkt. 147 judgment), holding all four patents invalid: the '516 patent anticipated by Blackburn '243 (U.S. 5,232,243); the '945 patent obvious over prior art combining bladder-based seat sensors with airbag-control sensors; the '029 patent invalid because it failed to establish priority over earlier art (U.S. 6,442,504); and the '080 patent invalid on anticipation/collateral estoppel grounds. *Automotive Techs. Int'l,

I'll research this case thoroughly using web searches against multiple sources.

Let me gather the docket details and appeal outcome.

I'll research press coverage of this case, starting with the articles flagged in the news index and then searching the case and its patents directly.

The indexed sensor-market articles look unrelated to the litigation. Let me verify that and search for actual case coverage.

Press coverage of ATI v. Delphi (E.D. Mich. No. 2:08-cv-11048)

Bottom line: coverage of this specific case is very thin. I found essentially one contemporaneous news article on the March 2011 invalidity ruling — an Am Law Litigation Daily / Law.com piece headlined "Kenyon & Kenyon Wins Airbag Patent Fight for Delphi" — plus firm-side announcements and court-database reproductions of the opinion (776 F. Supp. 2d 469, Dkt. 146 on Justia). I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, or EFF coverage of this docket, and no reporting on any damages figure, royalty claim, or settlement term. That silence is itself consistent with the record: the case died on summary judgment before any damages case was tried, and the appeal was resolved by an uncontested remand rather than a merits decision.

What the one news account reported. Law.com reported that Judge Robert Cleland, in a 46-page opinion, granted summary judgment "on Wednesday" (March 9, 2011) in what it called "a resounding victory" for Delphi and Kenyon & Kenyon, after ATI had dropped claims on three of the original seven patents, leaving four. It reported the procedural backstory now reflected in the docket — that ATI sued Delphi's OEM customers (GM, Ford, Mercedes-Benz USA) in N.D. Tex. in February 2008 over Delphi's "Passive Occupant Detection System" (PODS), and that Delphi counter-punched with a Michigan declaratory-judgment action later consolidated into this case. It also captured the defense's claim-construction theme: Delphi argued in its Markman brief that ATI's patents lacked "clear, concise claims," were written "in an expansive and disorganized way," and bore "little relation to the particular claims being asserted or the accused products." Both sides' counsel were contacted; the article states Hutchins (Kenyon & Kenyon) declined to comment and Kochanowski (Sommers Schwartz) did not respond — i.e., no executive or party statements about the outcome were reported by anyone.

Where the reporting differs from the court record. The Law.com account is a useful but imperfect summary and should not be relied on for the invalidity holdings. It describes the court as ruling that "three of the patents, which pertained to weight sensors, acceleration sensors, and adjustment systems, were not novel," and that "the fourth, which pertained to a bladder-based pressure sensor that controlled airbag deployment, was obvious." The opinion itself (776 F. Supp. 2d 469) allocates the grounds differently: the '516 patent was held anticipated by Blackburn '243; the '945 patent (the bladder-based pressure-sensor/airbag claim) was held obvious; the '029 patent failed for lack of priority over earlier art (U.S. 6,442,504); and the '080 patent fell on anticipation/collateral estoppel grounds. The article's garbled phrasing — it says the court found "that Delphi a jury could find ATI's patents invalid" — is evidently a copy/OCR error and misstates the summary-judgment standard; the opinion applies the clear-and-convincing burden. The article also gives no damages number, no settlement figure, and no market-impact analysis, and characterizes the ruling as resting on "novelty" where the court's '945 analysis was a full Graham/KSR obviousness inquiry.

Coverage of the related ATI campaign (context, not this docket). The most substantive press attention to ATI's automotive assertions concerned the earlier, related case over the '253 side-impact-sensor patent, not 08-11048. Missouri Lawyers Media (syndicating Bloomberg, Sept. 7, 2007) reported that the Federal Circuit "rejected a bid by Automotive Technologies International Inc. to revive a case against automakers and auto parts companies that it lost in 2005," holding the '253 patent invalid and unenforceable because "a typical technician couldn't tell how to make the sensor by looking at the patent," quoting the court that "noticeably absent is any discussion of the circuitry involved." That piece identified ATI as "closely held… headed by engineer David Breed of Denville, N.J.," listed the OEM defendants (DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Nissan, Saab, Toyota, VW) and parts makers (Bosch, Delphi, Siemens, TRW), and noted ATI's separate 2006 Delaware suit — the press's only framing of ATI as a serial portfolio enforcer. Banner & Witcoff likewise posted a Sept. 6, 2007 firm note on that affirmance for Delphi. Neither outlet carried the 2011 PODS ruling, and I found no reporting at all on the case's denouement — that the Federal Circuit dismissed ATI's appeal (No. 2011-1292) for failure to file an opening brief, then reinstated and remanded on March 8, 2012 so the district court could consider an unopposed motion to vacate a portion of the summary judgment "due to settlement" (Fed. Cir. order, 2011-1292). The settlement's terms, and which patent's judgment was to be vacated, are not in any press account I could locate — that story appears in the docket only.

A note on the four indexed articles. All four items supplied in the news index are false positives — ResearchAndMarkets market-research press releases about the general sensor industry, with no mention of this litigation, the parties' dispute, or any of the four patents. I verified the underlying release text: PRNewswire, 2019-07-08 (Global Sensor Technologies & Markets 2018–2024) is a table-of-contents release for a report with chapters on sensor types, end uses, and "Company Profiles" such as Accel AB, Alps Electric, Ametek, and Conti Temic; the Yahoo Finance version is the same syndicated release. The 2018 predecessor, "Sensors: Technologies and Markets to 2023" (the two Sys-con URLs: here and here), appears to be the same ResearchAndMarkets report re-released via Business Wire, 2018-07-12. The likely cause of the index match is that the 2018 report's "Companies Featured" list happens to include "Automotive Technologies International Inc." and "Delphi Automotive Plc"/"Delphi Corp." — coincidental appearances in a vendor directory, not coverage of the case. I did not directly load the two Sys-con pages or the Yahoo page (search returned the PRNewswire/Epicos and Business Wire equivalents, whose text matches), so treat the Sys-con/Yahoo links as verified only through their syndicated source content. None of these should be cited as reporting on ATI v. Delphi.

Sources

• This closes the case
• Automotive Technologies International, Inc. v. Delphi Corp. – CourtListener.com - Headmatter
• Auto. Technologies Int'l Inc. v. Delphi Corp.. - Auto. Technologies Int'l Inc. v. Delphi Corp..
• Kenyon & Kenyon Wins Airbag Patent Fight for Delphi | Law.com - Click to purchase an individual user subscription with your credit card
• Automotive Technologies International, Inc. v. Delphi Corporation, No. 2:2008cv11048 - Document 146 (E.D. Mich. 2011) - Automotive Technologies International, Inc. v. Delphi Corporation, No. 2:2008cv11048 - Document 146 (E.D. Mich. 2011)
• Automotive Technologies International v. Delphi – CourtListener.com - Combined Opinion
• 2:08-cv-11048 | Automotive Technologies International, Inc. v. Delphi Corporation | RPX Insight
• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION
• Vehicle diagnostic and prognostic methods and systems - Automotive Technologies International, Inc. - JPH01229741A | 1989-09-13
• AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL v. DELPHI CORP, Case No. 08-11048. | E.D. Mich., Judgment, Law, casemine.com - ROBERT H
• Global Sensor Technologies & Markets 2018-2024 with Profiles on Major Players Accel, Alps Electric Co, American Electronic Components, American Sensor Technologies, Ametek, Continental, and Many More
• Sensors: Technologies and Markets Forecast to 2023 - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Sensors: Technologies and Markets Forecast to 2023 - ResearchAndMarkets.com

I'll research the plaintiff-side counsel of record in this case.

I found initial leads. Let me dig into the docket and firm affiliations to build a complete picture.

Let me pull the docket sheet and confirm the full plaintiff-side appearance list.

Plaintiff's Counsel of Record — ATI (E.D. Mich. No. 2:08-cv-11048)

Important sourcing caveat up front: I could not pull the raw PACER docket sheet for this case (PACER is paywalled and the RECAP/CourtListener copy did not surface in search). The roster below is reconstructed from signed filings reproduced on RPX Insight, Justia, and CourtListener, plus the Federal Circuit appeal (No. 2011-1292) and contemporaneous press coverage. I have flagged where a name is inferred rather than directly confirmed on this docket. I did not find any sealed-filing problem that would hide counsel identity; appearances here were public.

The plaintiff is Automotive Technologies International, Inc. ("ATI"), a Delaware corporation. Its litigation team was a two-firm structure: an out-of-state patent boutique lead and a Michigan local-counsel firm.

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1. Andrew Kochanowski (P55117) — lead / local counsel

• Firm: Sommers Schwartz, P.C. (a/k/a Sommers, Schwartz, Silver & Schwartz)
• Office: 2000 Town Center, Suite 900, Southfield, MI 48075 (248-355-0300; akochanowski@sommerspc.com)
• Confirmation on this docket: Signed as "Attorneys for Plaintiff/Counter-Defendant" on the March 31, 2011 filing in No. 08-11048 (RPX Insight litigation document 2162120), and signed the October 28, 2010 Notice of Appeal "Attorneys For Plaintiffs" alongside Ms. Mikalonis (RPX Insight doc. 10040924).
• Note: ATI's most visible courtroom counsel across its automotive-IP campaign; contemporaneous Law.com coverage of the March 2011 summary-judgment loss identifies "ATI's attorney, Andrew Kochanowski of Sommers Schwartz in Southfield, Mich." He also argued/coordinated ATI matters in the earlier '253 patent litigation and the parallel Siemens VDO case.

2. Lisa Rycus Mikalonis (P39485) — local counsel / co-counsel

• Firm: Sommers Schwartz, P.C.
• Office: same Southfield, MI address (email rendered as lmikalonis@sommerspc.com in the OCR of the doc. 10040924 signature block)
• Confirmation: Co-signed the March 31, 2011 pleading and the October 28, 2010 Notice of Appeal as "Attorneys For Plaintiffs."
• Note: Michigan-barred co-counsel handling the local-court mechanics of ATI's filings; appears jointly with Kochanowski on every ATI signature block I located.

3. Michael H. Baniak — lead patent counsel (out-of-state, appearing pro hac vice)

• Firm: McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP, 300 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL (per the Oct. 28, 2010 signature block, where he is listed as "Attorneys For Plaintiffs"); earlier/later associated with Baniak Pine & Gannon (150 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago) and Baniak, Pine & Gannon, P.C.
• Confirmation: Listed as ATI's counsel on the joint ATI signature block in the consolidated ATI litigation (RPX Insight doc. 10040924, Oct. 28, 2010). He argued ATI's appeal in Automotive Technologies Int'l, Inc. v. BMW of North America, Inc., 501 F.3d 1274 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (Nos. 2006-1013/-1037), where "Andrew Kochanowski, Sommers Schwartz, P.C., of Southfield, Michigan" was of counsel on the brief.
• Caveat: I confirmed Baniak as ATI's lead patent counsel on the related/consolidated ATI matters and the joint signature block; I could not independently verify a standalone entry of appearance by Baniak on the 08-11048 docket itself. Treat his appearance in 08-11048 as well-sourced but not docket-quote-confirmed.

4. Michael D. Gannon — of counsel (out-of-state)

• Firm: Baniak, Pine & Gannon, P.C., Chicago
• Confirmation: Identified by the Federal Circuit as ATI's "of counsel" on the brief in the 2006-1013 appeal (per FindLaw's counsel listing and the Taylor v. Kochanowski et al., No. 07-cv-11867 (E.D. Mich.) opinion, which names "Michael H. Baniak" and "Baniak, Pine & Gannon, P.C." in the ATI/Taylor orbit).
• Caveat: Same as Baniak — of-counsel on the ATI appellate brief; docket presence in 08-11048 specifically is inferred, not directly confirmed.

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Attorneys to exclude (often confused)

The Federal Circuit's 2011-1292 order copy list — John R. Hutchins (Kenyon & Kenyon, for Delphi), Paul Richard Steadman, David M. Schnorrenberg, and Reginald J. Hill (Jenner & Block) — are defense-side counsel, not ATI's. Kenyon & Kenyon's John Hutchins is identified in Law.com's report as Delphi's attorney.

Practical notes

• Because the case was consolidated with No. 2:10-cv-10647 (the action ATI had filed against Delphi's OEM customers, transferred/coordinated out of N.D. Tex.), the same ATI team (Kochanowski/Mikalonis + Baniak) serviced both dockets. The consolidated appeal is Automotive Technologies Int'l, Inc. v. Delphi Corp., Fed. Cir. No. 2011-1292.
• The designations above reflect function as it appears in the filings (project lead patent counsel in Chicago; Michigan counsel of record in Southfield). If you need the precise appearance-entry dates and pro hac vice orders, those would require a direct PACER pull of the 08-11048 docket (Dkt. entries 1–150) — I can't verify those from the open sources retrieved here.

Bottom line: For No. 2:08-cv-11048, the plaintiff-side team was Andrew Kochanowski (lead, Sommers Schwartz, Southfield, MI), Lisa Rycus Mikalonis (local co-counsel, Sommers Schwartz), and Michael H. Baniak (lead patent counsel, McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff / Baniak Pine & Gannon, Chicago), with Michael D. Gannon as of counsel on the ATI appellate briefs.

I'll research the counsel of record for the defendants in this case. Let me search multiple sources.

I found key leads. Let me dig into the docket sheet and identify each attorney.

This is very useful — the proof of service lists defense counsel. Let me now map each attorney to their firm and client.

I've gathered substantial information, though my research hit limits before I could verify every individual client assignment against the full PACER docket. Here is what I can confirm and what remains inferential.

Basis and confidence

The most reliable source I found is the certificate of service attached to ATI's Fourth Amended Complaint (filed March 25, 2010) in this very case, which lists the ECF participants and non-ECF service recipients — i.e., the defense-side counsel of record as of that date. I also cross-checked against the Federal Circuit's order in Appeal No. 2011-1292 (Automotive Technologies Int'l v. Delphi), whose cc list identifies appellate counsel of record, and against firm biographies retrieved via web search.

⚠️ Caveat: I could not retrieve the complete PACER docket sheet or each attorney's individual ECF appearance, so some client-to-counsel mappings below are inferential and should be verified against the docket. No attorneys are invented — every name below appears in the case's own service list or Federal Circuit order.

Defense-side counsel of record

Confirmed as counsel in the litigation

Additional defense counsel named in the March 2010 service list (client/firm not verified)

These attorneys were served as counsel of record but I could not confirm their firm or client from available sources:

• William Cosnowski, Jr.
• Peter J. Brennan
• Gretchen Colter
• Sidney L. Frank
• Edward W. Goldstein
• Lawrence C. Mann
• Matthew J.M. Prebeg
• George D. Moustakas — widely associated with Harness, Dickey & Pierce (Troy, Mich.), a firm with deep Ford Motor Co. relationships; likely Michigan local counsel for an OEM defendant, but not confirmed here.
• Melvin R. Wilcox — Yarbrough-Wilcox, PLLC (Michigan) — non-ECF participant; likely local counsel, unconfirmed.
• Michael J. Songer and Clyde E. Findley — Crowell & Moring (non-ECF service recipients; same firm as Schnorrenberg).
• Eric Hugh Findlay — Findlay Craft, Tyler, Texas (non-ECF service recipient).

Plaintiff-side counsel (for contrast)

Andrew J. Kochanowski (P55117) and Lisa Rycus Mikalonis (P39485), Sommers Schwartz, P.C., Southfield, Mich., represented plaintiff/counter-defendant ATI and appear on the Federal Circuit cc list.

What I could not confirm

• No sealed filings or non-appearances were implicated — counsel clearly appeared on behalf of the defendants.
• I could not independently verify the specific firm and defendant assignment for Cosnowski, Brennan, Colter, Frank, Goldstein, Mann, Prebeg, Moustakas, and Wilcox, nor definitively tie Steadman, Schnorrenberg, and Hill to specific named defendants.
• To close these gaps, the authoritative source would be the PACER docket sheet for 2:08-cv-11048 (individual ECF appearances/notices of appearance) and the district-court opinions, which I was unable to pull in full here.