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Unocal sued over gas patent

THE NEW YORK TIMES, New York
The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint yesterday accusing the Unocal Corporation of fraudulent and anticompetitive practices in obtaining patents for the production of cleaner-burning gasoline.
In a suit filed with an administrative law judge at the agency, the F.T.C. contends that Unocal, which is based in El Segundo, Calif., misled California and other oil companies a decade ago when they were developing guidelines for cleaner gasoline for the state.
According to the complaint, Unocal, one of the largest independent oil and gas businesses in the United States, said certain research about the gasoline was not proprietary but then obtained patents on the process and began to charge others to use it.
As a result, the complaint said, Unocal acquired through the
patent process "monopoly power for the technology to produce and supply California" with the cleaner-burning gasoline, which companies are required to sell for eight months of the year. Many other refiners must pay Unocal to use the formulas it patented to
produce the fuel for California.
The F.T.C. is asking the judge to prevent Unocal from using its patents, seeking what amounts to a cease-and-desist order. The complaint moves to prevent Unocal from making money on the patents in the future, but it does not demand restitution or penalties for profits reaped by Unocal in the past, the F.T.C. said. A spokesman for the F.T.C. did not elaborate on why the agency had chosen such an approach, despite the fact that the commission criticized Unocal for behaving "to the detriment of the state's consumers."
"While companies are and must be free to petition the government, the right to petition does not include the right to commit fraud during the CARB regulatory process to obtain monopoly power," said Joe Simons, director of the F.T.C.'s bureau of competition, using the acronym for the California Air Resources Board, the state's pollution control agency. "As a result of Unocal's behavior, companies producing Phase 2 'summertime' CARB gasoline are liable to pay Unocal very substantial royalties."
In a statement, Unocal said that "hard evidence and case law will vindicate" the company.
The F.T.C. complaint is the culmination of an investigation begun 18 months ago, which was touched off by a request from Exxon Mobil in March 2001. Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch/Shell and other oil companies arrayed against Unocal had lost every legal appeal to invalidate the gasolineproduction patents.
The companies have so far refused to pay the royalties. Unocal is seeking $282 million it says it is owed through the end of 2000, Exxon Mobil said.
"We applaud the F.T.C.'s decision to file a complaint against Unocal for unfair trade practices," Exxon Mobil said. "Unocal engaged in unfair competition and attempted to gain a monopoly over a legally mandated product. Their actions will result in higher costs for refiners and higher prices for consumers."
The dispute can be traced back to a collaboration begun in the late 1980's between the State of California and a consortium of oil companies, including Unocal, to
develop guidelines for a cleanerburning gasoline. During the process, the companies and the state determined what the pollution emissions of the fuel should be and how it should be blended.
The F.T.C. contends that Unocal told the California Air Resources Board that certain research about cleaner-burning gasoline was not proprietary. Yet at the same time, Unocal moved to get a patent on the research to make it proprietary, and to charge others for the use of it.
Unocal's first patent was issued in February 1994, the F.T.C. complaint said, though it was not announced until January 1995. By this time, the refining industry had spent billions of dollars to reconfigure refineries to produce the new, cleaner-burning gasoline, the F.T.C. complaint said.
The biggest refiners, like Exxon Mobil, now make reformulated gasoline by "blending around" the patents, which slows the refining process, crimps supplies of reformulated gasoline and drives up prices, they contend. In 2000, in an investigation into high fuel prices in the Midwest, the F.T.C. concluded that the efforts of refiners to avoid infringing on Unocal's patents contributed to constrained supplies of reformulated gasoline in the region.
The California Air Resources Board has long supported action against Unocal, having filed an amicus brief in the mid-1990's in support of the other oil refiners in the state.
"Unocal didn't even advise us that it had in fact filed for a patent for over a year," said Jerry Martin, an agency spokesman. "The other oil companies would not have gone along with the effort to work cooperatively to develop a gasoline specification if they had known. We wouldn't have gone along with it, either, if we had known that any member of the group was filing a patent and developing a monopolistic situation.”