Annen avdeling PROTOKOLL Annen avdelings ... - Patentstyret

Annen avd. sak nr. 7592 81
5. It is the normal business practice in the oilfield industry to execute a contract having
confidentiality requirements. Opponent alleges that the drawing was delivered to Hamilton
without any form of confidentiality requirement – which would be inconsistent with the normal
business practice. Further it would have been normal business practice for a contract employee or
consultant to sign an agreement with the employing company obligating him to keep the
company‟s information confidential. If for some reason such an agreement had not been signed,
the obligation of confidence would have been implied because of the employer/employee
relationship, which if breached would have resulted in the dismissal of the employee.
6. I also make the following observations about Mr. McIntosh‟s Declaration. Mr. McIntosh admits
that D9 was "conceptual" and never states that he drew D9 or that he designed the concept shown
in D9. Further, Mr. McIntosh does not authenticate any of the other exhibits submitted with
Opponent‟s submission of June 23, 2008 in support of the authenticity of D9. In my copy of D9,
the legend is illegible and the drawing does not appear to be complete. Mr. McIntosh cannot
authenticate these documents because he is not an employee of National Supply, the custodian of
the documents. Mr. McIntosh does not state who finished D9 or who took charge of finishing D9
or even if it was ever finished. Still further, Mr. McIntosh does not state that he personally saw
Charley Johnson give D9 to Hamilton Brothers or identify who at Hamilton Brothers received D9
or that Hamilton Brothers provided any feedback on D9 or whether D9 was available within
Hamilton Brothers or to anyone outside Hamilton Brothers.
7. In an effort to better explain this complicated technology, I have attached as Exhibit A, a sideby-side
comparison of the National drawing D9 (CC-8009) with the system shown in Figure 2 of
the patent. The components have been numbered and color coded for easy reference to the
following discussion.
8. Opponent alleges that D9 was a concept considered but not used for the “Through Bore Tree
System” proposed to Hamilton Brothers by National Supply. The “Through Bore Tree System”
actually proposed to Hamilton is described in Figure 5 (KD91214) of the article “The
Development of the 7-1/16” Through-Bore Christmas Tree” attached as Exhibit B. Reference will
be made to Figure 5 below because Figure 5 shows the block tree 46 mounted on top of the
connector 40 shown in D9 and Exhibit A. Opponent states at the bottom of page 5 of its
submission that “element 40 of D9 is an upper part of the connector.”
9. D9 purportedly shows a subsea wellhead system 10. The system 10 appears to include a
wellhead housing 20 (blue) having a production casing hanger 23 (brown) supporting production
casing 29 in the well. A pack-off 24 seals the production casing hanger 23 with the full bore of the
wellhead housing 20. A tubing hanger assembly 26 (green, red), which Mr. McIntosh calls in the
third paragraph of his Declaration, “a conceptual 7-1/16 concentric through bore tubing hanger
complete with poppet type flow valves mechanically opened spring closed concept and downhole
control lines.” (Emphasis added) Thus tubing hanger assembly 26 is a nested combination of an
inner hanger 30 (green) supporting tubing 32 and a full wellhead bore outer hanger 31 (red)
having poppet valves 36 and supporting inner hanger 30 from casing hanger 23 via pack-off 24.
Tubing 32 and innermost casing 29 form an annulus 34 communicating with poppet valves 36 to
control the flow and pressure due to fluids in the annulus 34. It can be seen that inner hanger 30 is
not oriented within the wellhead housing 20, and does not have an annulus fluid path.
10. A retrievable communication nipple (non-oriented stab) 41 (light green) (See Figure 4 and
first full paragraph on page KD091208 of Article Exhibit B) extends from the production bore 48
through the lower end 42 of connector 40 (yellow) into the bore of inner hanger 30. Although
Opponent wishes to describe communication nipple 41 as a hanger, in fact, no tubing hangs from
communication nipple 41. The valve tree 46 (orange) of Article, Exhibit B, is mounted on top of
the connector 40 and has master valves in the vertical production flowbore 48 for opening and
closing flow bore 48 which extends through the tree 46 and connector 40.