San Pedro firm wins legal victory in case over emissions control patents

A Sanu2009Pedro company marketing emissions control technology designed to reduce cargo vessels from spewing pollution into the air while at berth did not infringe upon the patents held by a competing Longu2009Beach firm, judges found.

Clean Air Engineering Maritime of Sanu2009Pedro is the firm that prevailed in court. The company in Octoberu20092012 sought a judicial determination that its technology did not infringe upon its competitor’s patents. A U.S. District court judge agreed in Marchu20092015, and the San Pedro firm won another legal victory in April after the case was appealed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision, clearing the way for CAEM and its competitor in the marketplace and legal system, Longu2009Beach-based Advanced Environmental Group, LLC, to compete for shipping companies’ business.

“We are using the system consistently at TraPac and a few other shipping terminals at least weekly,” said Nick Tonsich, CAEM’s principal.

TraPac operates a container terminal at Port of Los Angeles.

Port spokesman Phillip Sanfield said the port’s 2009u2009lease with the terminal operator required new emissions control technologies, and port officials also awarded TraPac a $1.5u2009million grant to do so.

That led to TraPac selecting Clean Air Engineering Maritime and its technology. Tonsich is a former Losu2009Angeles Harbor Commission president, but Sanfield said TraPac — not port officials — made the decision to hire his company for the work.

The Califoia Air Resources Board has approved the emissions-capture technologies marketed by Clean Air Engineering Maritime and Advanced Environmental Group as alteative methods for shipping firms to comply with a rule that would otherwise require vessels to be plugged into shore-based power systems while berthed at Califoia ports, including those in Losu2009Angeles and Longu2009Beach. The rule is intended to reduce air pollution by preventing them from generating power by buing diesel while in the ports.

Retrofitting ships for shorepower, however, can be expensive. The systems marketed by Clean Air Engineering Maritime and Advanced Environmental Group are the only such technologies that have won approval from CARB as alteative methods to capture and filter ships’ emissions.

Both systems work by capturing ships’ exhaust as it emitted from the vessel. The systems can be set up on barges and floated to a customers’ ship.

Advanced Environmental Group president Ruben Garcia said he disagreed with the court’s ruling, but that his firm also has customers using its technology and is seeking additional business.

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“Our technology is working well and we’re staying busy,” Garcia said.

Advanced Engineering Group’s technology is called the Advanced Emissions Control System, or AMECS. CARB’s approval order named Carson-based Advanced Cleanup Technologies, Inc. as the developer, but Garcia said the two firms are separate companies and his plans were to have AMECS marketed under Advanced Engineering Group’s baer while the Carson firm would be focused on industrial cleanup.

The Losu2009Angeles and Longu2009Beach ports both subsidized the development of AMECS.

Port of Longu2009Beach spokesman Art Wong said Advanced Engineering Group is now “on its own” to make deals with potential customers.