The Development of the Truss Plate, Part VIII: Patent Skirmishes

Issue #15284 - March 2023 | Page #10

By Joe Kannapell

As builders began demanding Gang-Nailed trusses, imitators answered their call with little concern for violating Cal Jureit’s patent. Even though his claims were technical triumphs, vetted by D.C. patent experts, they were quickly contested by two now-familiar figures, Bill Black and Walter Moehlenpah. Black was the first to copy Jureit’s plate, doing so the first year the Gang-Nail plate was on the market and before it had been patented. Moehlenpah followed two years later with the same plate design, even after Jureit’s patent was issued and Jureit had sued Black, and undoubtedly he expected to be sued himself. The upshot would prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the inventor. These and other patent skirmishes would shape the trajectory of the plated truss industry from the start of its existence. And because of the intervention of the legal system, that trajectory would not at all be linear.

Two conditions unique to South Florida were a strong impetus to Jureit’s invention: the 55 lbs. design loading and the common roof pitch of 2.5/12. These factors, which produce over 7,000 lbs. of axial forces in truss members, preclude any sort of conventional metal or plywood scab connections, and certainly influenced Jureit’s beefy design. Sanford’s patent zeroes in on the heel joint, which must withstand the highest forces in the truss, and he claims that the main advantage of his invention is that a “… lightweight truss can be inexpensively prefabricated from standard two by fours having the novel grip plates at the joints.” Sanford further specifies that the wedge-shaped projections be one inch on center and that nails be driven two inches on center. This requirement for supplementary nails probably precluded challenges to his patent, as all attention was directed at Jureit’s. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]

Sanford was able to nearly double his two-year head start on Jureit because his Grip Plate design was much easier to stamp. Jureit spent an extra year of R&D optimizing his Gang-Nail design, and then had to invest much more time and effort procuring first-of-its-kind tooling and stamping equipment. By law, neither plate could be marketed or sold more than one year prior to the filing of the patent application. So, both inventors, but especially Jureit, had to invest considerable sums before realizing any income. And during the four years that they each had to wait for their patents, they had no legal basis upon which to challenge any of the dozen plates that came onto the market.

Two elements of Jureit’s patent would determine how well it would hold up when challenged. The first is the precision of his claims, which, no doubt, resulted from his prior testing lab experience and his yearlong R&D on his invention. The second is the broad coverage of his claims, precluding nearly all feasible plate thickness and tooth dimensions as noted here. In fact, if this chart had been strictly enforced, every plate design produced over the last 70 years would have infringed on Jureit’s patent. [For chart, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] However, the plated truss business was too hot for this patent to have gone unchallenged.

In fact, a dozen competitors arose in the four years it took for Jureit’s patent application to be approved, and Jureit had become aware in his first year doing business of at least one potential infringement. He had learned from his local fabricator, Dade Truss, that on February 3, 1957, one day after Dade advertised their trusses in the Miami Herald, Bill Black (Sr.) visited and received some Gang-Nails allegedly “to show an architect for an apartment job.” Subsequently, Black was identified as an officer in the company with W. B. Atkins that produced Gator-Lock connectors, shown here. On March 17, 1959, the day that the Gang-Nail patent was granted, Jureit sued Gator-Lock for infringement. Ironically, while this action was pending, Atkins applied for a patent himself, apparently thinking that would aid his case (which it did not). On January 20, 1960, Atkins was compelled to cease production of his plate. However, shortly thereafter, Black began selling the Atkins plate in Washington, D.C., prompting Gang-Nail to successfully prosecute another suit that barred Black from offering the Atkins plate. (After this judgement, Black turned his attention to selling roof truss machines.) But despite these two court rulings in different jurisdictions on the infringement of the Atkins plate, it kept turning up!

Thus began an expensive and distracting defensive battle that Jureit was forced to wage, even while he was pre-occupied with expanding his business from 26 dealers in 1959, to 85 in 1960, and 118 in 1961. Having expanded so rapidly across the country, Gang-Nail became a target for imitators, but they also were able to keep a close eye on potential patent infringements across the country. And just one year after securing two wins, Cal Jureit’s next nemesis would be Walter Moehlenpah, the owner of Hydro-Air Engineering, in what would become the “case of the century.”