Altair Eyewear, Inc.

Altair Eyewear, Inc. is a California corporation headquartered at 10875 International Drive, Rancho Cordova, California. It is a division of Marchon Eyewear, Inc. and, through Marchon, a subsidiary of VSP Vision (Vision Service Plan), the not-for-profit eye-health and vision-benefits company. VSP acquired Marchon in 2008 for a reported $735 million and folded its existing Altair Eyewear business into Marchon as a division. Altair is not publicly traded; VSP does not break out Altair's revenue or headcount, so no reliable employee or revenue figures are publicly available.

Operations. Altair designs, produces and distributes prescription optical frames and sunglasses, sold primarily to independent eye-care practices (the company cites more than 10,000 independent optical retailers). Its business is a mix of licensed brands — including Anne Klein, bebe, Calvin Klein Jeans, Cole Haan, Draper James, Joseph Abboud, JOE Joseph Abboud, Spyder and ZEISS — and proprietary house brands such as Genesis, Lenton & Rusby, McAllister and Otis & Piper. It also runs "Altair Unlimited," a frame-board management program for practices. This is an operating manufacturer/distributor, not a patent-assertion entity.

Litigation posture. The case data shows one tracked matter, with Altair as defendant and zero plaintiff-side filings — the profile of an operating company being sued, not an aggressor. The suit, Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., was filed in August 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and later transferred to the District of Massachusetts. It is not an Eastern District of Texas matter.

Case context. Aspex Eyewear and Contour Optik (a Taiwanese patent-holding affiliate of the Chao family; Aspex was its exclusive U.S. licensee) asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 5,737,054, 6,012,811 and 6,092,896, covering magnetic clip-on/auxiliary eyewear that attaches at the frame bridge. Altair won summary judgment of non-infringement in April 2007, which was affirmed on appeal. Aspex's parallel bid to add Altair's parent, VSP, as a defendant on an alter-ego/veil-piercing theory was denied in 2005. Aspex was itself an operating eyewear distributor that litigated similar magnetic-eyewear patents against multiple competitors, including Altair's parent Marchon.