GAF Corporation

GAF Corporation (GAF; also GAF Materials LLC / GAF Materials Corporation)

GAF is a privately held U.S. building-materials manufacturer headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, founded in 1886 as the Standard Paint Company (the GAF acronym derives from its later identity as General Aniline & Film). It is an operating subsidiary of Standard Industries, a privately held New York–based industrial group with roughly $11 billion in annual revenue and over 20,000 employees across its portfolio. GAF itself reports on the order of 3,500–4,800 U.S. employees; Wikipedia and trade press cite sales approaching $3 billion. It is not publicly traded.

Products / operations. GAF is North America's largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer. Residential lines include asphalt shingles (Timberline HDZ, UHDZ, ArmorShield, TimberSteel metal), synthetic underlayments (FeltBuster), ventilation and accessory products, and contractor certification/warranty programs. Commercial lines include TPO and modified-bitumen single-ply membrane systems and waterproofing. Its affiliated solar unit, GAF Energy, produces the Timberline Solar nailable solar shingle. GAF operates roughly 30 U.S. manufacturing sites.

Patent-litigation posture. GAF is an operating company that appears in the tracked data solely as a defendant (0 plaintiff cases, 1 defendant case), consistent with a manufacturer defending against outside patent assertion rather than enforcing its own portfolio.

Notable case. The single tracked suit is Kirsch Research & Development, LLC v. GAF Corporation (filed 2020-04-24, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas; later transferred to the District of New Jersey). Kirsch, a Simi Valley, California–based patent holder, filed parallel suits against roughly a dozen roofing manufacturers and a companion ITC Section 337 action (Inv. No. 337-TA-1202) over synthetic roof-underlayment patents. The ITC claim construction went against Kirsch, which withdrew its complaint; GAF's inter partes review (IPR2021-00192) invalidated the asserted claims of U.S. Patent 6,308,482, a result affirmed by the Federal Circuit in May 2024.