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$20 for each Sea Bulk liner sold. On May 27, 1983, Insta-Bulk and
Sea-Land settled their litigation, with Insta-Bulk agreeing to the
validity and enforceability of the Sea Bulk patents and to
infringement of one or more of the claims of the patents. Effective
January 1, 1989, the royalty rate for the Insta-Bulk sublicense was
reduced to 13 percent. On March 15, 1991, Powertex terminated its
sublicense agreement with Insta-Bulk.
D. The Amoco-Style Liner
During mid-1985, Gene Rakar of Amoco Chemical Company (Amoco)
approached Mr. Podd concerning the feasibility of using intermodal
container liners to transport pure terephthalic acid (PTA), a fine,
white powder used to make polyester fiber. In the fall of 1985, Mr.
Podd invited Mr. Rakar, Frank Hall (Amoco's Marketing Product
Manager), and Tracy Sommer (an engineer at Amoco) to observe a test
loading of a Sea Bulk liner at General Electric, a Powertex
customer, in Selkirk, New York. After witnessing the demonstration,
the Amoco personnel determined that the Sea Bulk liner was not
acceptable for shipping PTA, due to the 2 to 3 hour loading time,
which needed to be shortened to approximately 15 minutes.
Additionally, Amoco needed a liner that was moisture sensitive and
utilized a center discharge opening in order to be compatible with
their customers' unloading equipment. A short time later, Amoco
employees visited another Powertex customer in New Orleans to
witness another loading demonstration.
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Last modified: May 25, 2011