Company overview. ControlTec, LLC is a private, operating company based in Severance, Colorado (P.O. Box 69), per third-party data aggregator Kona Equity, which lists the company as founded in 1993 with roughly 13 employees and estimated annual revenue of about $1.8 million (estimates, not company-disclosed figures). It is not publicly traded and reports no parent or affiliate. It should not be confused with the similarly named Control-Tec LLC of Allen Park, Michigan, a telematics provider that is an Aptiv subsidiary.
Products / operations. ControlTec designs and sells anti-sweat door-heater controls for commercial supermarket refrigeration display cases. Its flagship AS-20 system wirelessly controls anti-sweat heaters on a case-by-case basis using frame-temperature and dew-point sensors, cycling heaters to prevent condensation on glass doors while cutting energy use; the system is self-monitoring and IoT-connected. A VEIC/Hannaford case study on the company's website documents the technology's energy-savings claims. The company holds U.S. Patent Nos. 7,207,181 and 7,421,847, both titled "Refrigeration Unit Condensation Prevention."
Patent-litigation posture. ControlTec is an operating company enforcing its own patents, not an NPE. Unified Patents categorizes it as an "Operating Company" patent owner. Its tracked docket shows one suit as plaintiff and one as defendant, both from the same dispute: in July 2024 it sued Anthony, Inc. and Hill Phoenix, Inc. (Dover Corporation subsidiaries that make commercial refrigeration doors) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (No. 1:24-cv-00883), alleging infringement of the two patents by Anthony's "Energy Controller" anti-sweat products. The defendants then petitioned for inter partes review, producing the single PTAB appearance where ControlTec is nominal defendant. Venue is Delaware, not a plaintiff-friendly forum like the Eastern District of Texas.
Notable context. In Anthony, Inc. v. ControlTec, LLC (IPR2025-00559 and IPR2025-00636), the PTAB's Acting Director declined to discretionarily deny institution even though both patents expired in July 2025, citing alleged material USPTO error during prosecution; the IPRs were instituted and remain pending. The dispute centers on condensation-prevention control technology for refrigerated display-case doors and frames.