http://www.mddailyrecord.com/a…m?id=13623&type=UTTM
Model train maker Mike’s Train House sues longtime rival
BRENDAN KEARNEY
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
October 19, 2009 7:21 PM
A Columbia model train manufacturer has filed the latest in a series of patent infringement lawsuits aimed at a longtime competitor, alleging he and his company made unauthorized use of technology that syncs a locomotive’s sound and smoke to its speed on the tracks.
Mike’s Train House Inc. claims Robert Grubba has a history of stealing such prized intellectual property in their niche industry. In its most recent suit filed Oct. 8, MTH alleges that the company where Grubba is now president, Broadway Limited Imports, stole the patented microprocessing technology that synchronizes puffing smoke with the “chuffing” of the engine in a particular model of train, the HO-gauge. MTH claims it first developed the technology in 2000, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. “That’s the problem,” said Mike Wolf, a model train enthusiast since childhood who founded the company that bears his name in 1980.
Wolf discovered the infringement when he recently purchased one of the locomotives in Florida-based BLI’s new line, whose five models range from $350 to $500, to have an engineer look at its syncing system.
“I think it’s going to be pretty clean cut,” said Wolf, 49, in an interview Monday. “I think [Grubba] knows he’s doing it and he can try to cover it up, but it is what it is. He can’t be using my intellectual property with no regard.”
Wolf’s suit asks for declaratory and injunctive relief relating to its two patents, issued in 2002 and 2003, as well as compensatory damages and attorney’s fees. Wolf’s lawyer William E. Erskine, who also tinkered with trains as a kid, said the disputed technology lends authenticity to the models an